It Was You
by NightFury812
Summary: Sasori is revived by Lady Chiyo, and gets a second chance at being human, but he ends up as Sakura's captive. However when a simple mission turns out to be the longest mission Sakura's ever had, what will happen along the way?
1. Breathe into me

**A/N: Okay so here's my first Naruto fanfic. I'm excited about this and I plan to make it at least over 15 chapters. As for the Chapter names I'm going to name them all after a song that I think fits with what's going on in that chapter. Anyways enjoy and please review and tell me what you think.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the song Breathe into me by Red**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Breathe into me**

* * *

Numb

_Why do I feel so numb_? Sasori thought as darkness began to surround his vision. He'd never felt so cut off from the world around him before. Shouldn't he at least feel some amount of pain before death? Dying was supposed to be painful. Right?

Sakura and lady Chiyo watched in unspoken relief as Sasori collapsed to the ground unmoving as his life force faded away into nothing. The battle had gone on far too long and both of the medical ninjas were exhausted and low on chakra.

"It's over lady Chiyo," Sakura told the elder who was watching Sasori's body with an expression of disbelief plain on her face. "I knew we could do it."

"No…I'm the one who should have been killed," she mumbled. "Sasori saw through my last attack, but for some reason, he didn't try to dodge. He left himself open."

Sakura frowned at what she said, and returned her gaze to the dead puppet master. She almost expected him to come alive, and start attacking them all over again. He was definitely one of the hardest foes she'd ever faced. Multiple times during their battle she had thought he'd died, but every time he'd managed to come back. Sasori had the strongest life force she'd ever seen. His desire to win had been unstoppable. Lady Chiyo was right, he did allow her to kill him with his parent puppets. "You don't think he...?" she paused glancing over at lady Chiyo who'd returned her attention back to the ground.

The question remained unanswered. Lady Chiyo knew that Sasori did it on purpose. _But why_? He could have maneuvered easily out of the way. Sasori was an S rank missing ninja after all. _Was his life so miserable that he chose to end it, when given the opportunity to do so?_

Lady Chiyo sighed knowing what she had to do. She rose unsteadily to her feet and stumbled over to where Sasori lay on the ground.

"W-what are you doing lady Chiyo?" Sakura asked confused at the elder's actions.

Lady Chiyo knelt by Sasori and began pulling out the blades in his body. "I'm sorry Sakura… I wish I could explain to you why I'm going to do this, but I wouldn't be able to find the right words. Just promise me this…" the elder glanced up to look at the confused medical ninja, "Please help him find the right path."

It took Sakura a few seconds until her mind registered what was happening. Her emerald eyes widened in shock as the elder began the life transfer jutsu on the puppet master's body.

The wood started to change to flesh, and organs started to form in Sasori's puppet body. He was becoming human again.

Sakura froze; she didn't know what to do. Should she stop her, or honor the elder's wish. No, lady Chiyo knows what she's doing. Even if it sounded totally insane to her, Sakura couldn't do that to the elder. Besides she could always turn him in to Konohana after all of this was over. Why would she look after a psychopath to begin with?

Sakura felt her legs walk her over to the two puppeteers, and she kneeled next to lady Chiyo as the final stages of the jutsu began to take place. The elder was breathing heavily as the jutsu's effects took its toll on her. Sakura offered to help give her more chakra, but she quickly refused, wanting Sakura to save any precious chakra she had left. So Sakura instead let the elder lean on her for support as she slowly began dying before her eyes.

When Sasori took a breath for the first time, Lady Chiyo sighed in relief as she realized the jutsu was a success, and not a wasted effort. His heart was beating, there were no wooden parts, flesh was in its place instead, and for the first time in a long time. Sasori was human.

Lady Chiyo collapsed against Sakura, giving one last shuttering breath before dying in her embrace.

Tears welled in Sakura's eyes, as she saw the light in the elder's eyes dull. She was gone, and the realization of it hit Sakura hard. The woman had been a friend and mentor to her at the same time in her final hours. She'd risked everything to protect and assist her. Now she was gone forever.

Sakura trembled on the hard ground of the ruined cave as sobs escaped her. She knew not to let her emotions show, it wasn't the shinobi way, but for the moment she just didn't care. The loss of the old woman had cut into her deeply.

Time passed by, and she wiped away the tears that still remained. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she realized she had totally forgotten about Sasori during her break down.

She glanced over at the puppeteer who still wasn't in overall great condition. He would also have to learn how to function in a human body again.

Stifling another sob she created a shadow clone with her remaining chakra. Her clone carefully picked up the elder, while Sakura walked over to Sasori's unconscious form. Picking him up bridle style with enhanced chakra in her arms and legs to support his weight, the two Sakura's headed off towards the woods, across the river, and in front of the Akatsuki hideout. She had to find a safe place to tell Kakashi about her "situation" and hopefully he would allow her to return lady Chiyo's body to the sand village. She deserved to be buried in the village she had loved.

Sakura looked down once more at Sasori's peaceful features, and wondered what to do with him exactly. He was a criminal, and he might even try to kill her when he woke up. This was turning out to be a very interesting mission. First the fight against the Akatsuki and now she was going to have to travel with an S ranked missing ninja. _This day just keeps getting better and better…_

* * *

There it was….pain.

That meant he was dead now right? Now he could finally be at ease, and his pitiful life had come to an end. Although, why did he feel the distinct sensation of being carried. Was this what happens after you die. No, he shouldn't feel anything except for the pain. What was going on?

Sasori opened his heavy eyelids, and was awed by all the bright colors._ Interesting_, he thought deliriously as he tried to focus on the world around him. _Strange in death I thought there would only be darkness, so why is there so many colors, and why is it so warm?_

He desperately to stay awake in this color place, so when he felt himself slipping back into darkness he panicked and fought against his heavy eyelids. _No no no_! He screamed mentally_. I want to stay….. please let me stay…_

Darkness surrounded his vision, and the tiniest whimper of protest escaped Sasori's lips before he gave in not wanting to fight the darkness any longer.

* * *

Sakura came to a halt as they reached suitable clearing, she ordered her clone to put lady Chiyo down near a boulder, while she gently laid Sasori down in front of her. She needed to get a hold of Kakashi.

Messing with her portable walkie talkie, she clicked the button to turn it on, and hesitantly asked, "Kakashi?" It was silent for about ten seconds before he finally responded back.

"Sakura are you alright?" he asked, it sounded as if he was running really fast so it was hard to make out the rushed words. She could even hear his harsh breaths in the background.

"Ya I'm fine Kakashi sensei….. but lady Chiyo.." she forced down a sob and continued, "she… she didn't make it."

"She's dead?"

"Yes," her response sounded hollow, and Kakashi felt terrible that he couldn't be there to comfort his former student. It sounded as if the loss of lady Chiyo had really affected the young medical ninja.

"I'm sorry Sakura….. I wish we could come back, but we're still in pursuit of Deidara, and I can't leave Naruto to face him by himself. You know how he can be in situations like this. We'll be back as soon as possible, I promise."

"No it's okay… just don't do anything reckless or idiotic," she told him, before asking the question she'd been thinking about for the last hour. "Actually, I would like to return Lady Chiyo's body back to the sand village, if that is alright with you?" She asked quietly.

Kakashi thought about it for a moment before replying, "Sure…. just don't do anything reckless or idiotic."

Sakura rolled her eyes, "like I would do something like that."

"Whatever you say Sakura," he chuckled before turning his communicator off.

Sakura sat there for a few minutes spaced out, when a huge gust of wind brought her back to reality. _Oh crap I forgot to tell him about Sasori. Oops_, she thought. She didn't want to disturb him again since he was facing an S rank criminal. _Calling him once was dangerous enough she couldn't risk it again._ _Besides what can Sasori really do in the state he was in now? He wouldn't be able to walk by himself for at least a week or two_, she thought trying to reassure herself.

Maybe it was because of the fact that she was so absorbed in her thoughts, but she didn't really notice the crimson haired ninja was waking up until he groaned quietly in front of her.

Sakura jumped at the sudden noise and her emerald eyes settled onto the now awakening shinobi.

He appeared to be disoriented, from the dazed stare, and he looked as if he was about to get sick at any moment. He didn't even make an attempt to sit up or even look at her. Instead he remained unmoving except for the steady rise and fall of his chest.

"Um… Sasori? Sakura asked unsure for the first time. What was she supposed to do now?

"Am I dead?" he said in a raspy unused voice.

"No lady Chiyo revived you," Sakura told him quietly kneeling at his side. He seemed to be in pain, but she had used most of her chakra up and couldn't afford to heal him unless it was life threatening.

"Why didn't you brats just let me die?" he demanded shifting his gaze to her face. After trying to get his body to move for the fifth time, he concluded that the reason he couldn't move in the first place was simply because he was out of chakra.

Sakura noticed his obvious discomfort in his new body and quickly told him, "Sasori you have to get used to your body. You're human again. You can't use your chakra to move now."

Sasori tensed at her words. _Human_? He was the type of art he despised now. He would grow old and die instead of remaining beautiful forever. Why did the fates hate him so much? After so many long hours of hard work to become an almost complete puppet and he was back at square one, and at the hands of his enemy. Well t_his is just great_, he thought sarcastically.

"I'm not going to harm you unless you attempt to harm me. Lady Chiyo told me to take care of you, so I'm going to honor her last request until you're healthy, then I'm probably going to turn you in to my Hokage, and you'll most likely spend the rest of your life in prison or something after all the crimes you committed. I haven't worked out the exact details yet but I will soon," she said watching as he closed his eyes, the small action of keeping them open was starting to make him tired.

"So what are your plans until then?" he asked defeated. He obviously had no chance in beating this ninja in his current state. This new body of his was beginning to annoy him and it had only been about two minutes.

"Well I'm taking your grandmother's body back to the sand village. Then I'll head back to Konoha. If you want to come with me you can, or I'll just hand you back over to your former village as I return lady Chiyo. They'll probably execute you, considering all the crimes you've committed. It's your choice though I guess," Sakura said in a matter of fact tone.

"What makes you think I'll go anywhere with you brat once I'm healed?" he asked while trying to ignore his body's demands for sleep.

"Because you really don't have much of a choice in the matter," she told him in a superior tone that he immediately disliked.

"Fine," he snapped.

"Fine _what_?" she teased.

"Fine I'll go with you," he mumbled before succumbing to sleep.

Sakura didn't know whether or not to be pleased or confused with the fact that he wanted to come with her. So she shrugged instead, stood up, walked a short distance away, and performed some hand signs casting a genjutsu as strong as she could manage. Sakura knew they both needed rest to regain some strength and chakra before setting out for their long trip, so having enemies attacking them while they slept wouldn't be any help at all. After one last glance at Sasori, Sakura untied her supply bag from around her waist, and laid it on the ground to use as a pillow. _Once I've regained enough chakra I have to leave this place, being so close to the Akatsuki hideout is extremely dangerous_, she reminded herself. Besides she couldn't afford to get herself caught now.


	2. Keep Holding On

**A/N: Well here's chapter 2 finally. It took me a week to type all of this I'm not used to typing such long chapters yet (I'm used to only typing 1,000 word chapters). They might get longer as this story goes on, but for now I'm keeping it in the 2,000 to 3,000 word range. Well anyways **_**please R & R and let me know what you think. **_

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the song Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne**

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**Chapter 2: Keep Holding On**

* * *

Sakura was certain that she would've slept in, if the sunlight hadn't been so bright. She groaned, rolled onto her stomach, and wished that she was home in bed. Her muscles ached from overuse and from sleeping on the ground, which didn't help in her current situation. The chakra that she'd regained had been more than she had expected after using up almost all of it the previous day, so she decided to put it to good use and travel at least a few miles before the sun set.

Stretching she got up and retied her weapons pouch to her waist. Sasori looked like he was still sleeping, but she wouldn't put it past the puppeteer to feign being asleep. He still wore the cloak from when he switched to another puppet's body. Sakura mentally noted that she would have to get him new clothes as soon as possible, and on top of that they both needed a bath, badly. In their current state Sakura only hoped they would be accepted into a hotel of some sort.

After fishing through her pockets, she managed to dig out about seven solider pills that she could split between the two of them. They would need their strength, plus Sasori hadn't eaten in his new body yet. He was probably starving. She quickly placed them back in pocket, before tentatively walking over to Sasori and kneeling at his side. She shook his shoulder to get him up, and watched as he opened his dazed brown eyes to glare at her.

"Good morning, I have some solider pills for you," she said in a fake cheery voice.

He continued to glare at her. "I'm not hungry," he deadpanned. Yet at that moment his stomach growled and he jumped at the sudden noise.

Sakura had to fight the urge to laugh before telling him. "I'm pretty sure that's your stomach disagreeing with you."

Sasori closed his eyes as if pretending to ignore her, at least until she started to lift him up into a sitting position against her.

"W-what are you doing," he asked shocked, and almost instantly he felt uncomfortable at their sudden closeness. She used one arm to support him, and his head leaned against her shoulder, as she searched for something in her pocket.

Grabbing a handful of solider pills, she held one out near his mouth and waited. Sasori's eyes narrowed, but another wave of hunger tore through him, making him swallow his pride and allow her to feed him one.

Almost instantly he regretted eating the rotten thing. The taste was beyond awful, and he had to force himself to swallow to get the food in his empty stomach. He cursed under his breath and found himself wanting to strangle the pick haired brat for making him eat it in the first place.

"What the hell was that," he snarled; after she laid him back down to eat one herself.

She paused to look over at him. "A solider pill that I made from scratch," she responded. They tasted terrible in her opinion, but at least it would keep them going until noon.

"If all food is this bad nowadays, I think I would rather starve than eat this crap," he said ignoring the harsh look she gave him.

Thankfully though, he remained quiet while she made hand signs for a shadow clone, which she ordered to carry lady Chiyo, while she scrunched down beside Sasori.

"Sorry, looks like I have to carry you," Sakura said watching as he stared mistrustfully at her. Picking him up the same way as yesterday (bridle style), Sasori felt heat rush to his face as he rested his head against her shoulder. He hated physical contact period, and the current situation they were in made it almost unbearable for him. His new human heart began racing, as old emotions of some sort started to affect him. Taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down, he tried to keep his mind on the chakra she was using to help carry him, in an attempt to distract himself. He noticed that it radiate around them in almost a soothing sort of sensation. It almost felt… comforting?

Sakura glanced over to the other side of the clearing, giving her clone the signal that it was time to go with a brief nod, and they took off running through the forest, leaving the clearing behind in the dust.

* * *

They had only been traveling a few hours when a town came into view. Sakura skidded to a halt, taking in the sight of it. The town was small, but even from their position they could see people shopping at the many stores there.

Sakura smiled before running back into the forest to find a place for Sasori to stay while she picked up supplies for the two of them. Hopefully he would be able to walk soon because carrying him everywhere was making her arms ache, even with the chakra coursing through her arms.

Sakura was about ready to give up and tie him to some random tree when a small cave came into view. "Perfect," she said under her breath as she neared it. The cave appeared to be abandoned and would make a nice camp for them later that night.

Dropping off Sasori towards the back, she ordered her clone to hide lady Chiyo, so she could get going as soon as possible.

Of course Sasori said nothing even when she told him about what she was going to do in town. So with one last glance in his direction she started off in the direction of town, leaving Sasori alone in the forest.

* * *

The sun was still high in the sky, as Sakura traveled happily from store to store.

Already she picked out new clothes for Sasori, obtained some edible food (that Sakura hoped he wouldn't complain about), and found a few extra weapons that might come in handy. Sakura smiled down at her bag of items while she dragged her aching feet to a bench.

She glance down and found a piece of paper with some writting on it and reached down to grab it. Except at that same moment a gust of wind whipped the piece of paper into the air, and with direct accuracy it hit pink haired ninja directly in her face. Grumbling she pealed it off herself and read that an inexpensive inn was nearby, and she decided that a bath wouldn't hurt. Walking a few blocks down the street she found the inn and paid so she could wash her clothes, take a bath, and get a quick bite to eat. About an hour later, she exited the building and thanked the owner before heading back into town for more shopping, ignoring her inner that screamed in her head at every hot guy she passed. Sakura did her best to fight off her growing head ache, but still she couldn't help herself as she curiously wondered how Sasori was doing...

* * *

The forest was quiet and serine, not even birds were chirping, and still Sasori was annoyed. He practiced moving his fingers and watched with satisfaction as they moved perfectly without chakra strings. Actually now that he thought about it, he tried to make chakra strings at the ends of his finger tips, and only a faint blue appeared for less than a second before it faded away.

Gritting his teeth he tried again and again until he could make a foot long chakra string appear for a few seconds. It was a start but still he wished he could do more than that.

With only the cave ceiling for a view, Sasori was bored out of his mind, and wished the pink haired kounochi would hurry up. He hated the fact that she was keeping him waiting all alone with no protection. The stupid brat even forgot to put up a genjutsu before leaving. Sasori never felt more vulnerable in his life. Anything could happen and he would be defenseless to do anything about it. "Could this get any worse?" he thought out loud just as a vulture landed on the ground a few feet away from him. "Shi-"

* * *

"It has been a blast today, but I better get going," Sakura said to herself as she walked out of the town. She'd bought even a small backpack full of camping supplies, so they wouldn't have to sleep on the cold ground, and she was quite pleased with that. The rest of the items she had bought were in a small bag that one of store workers had given her. She had to admit it felt good to shop almost all afternoon, and couldn't wait to lay down and enjoy the rest of her evening.

Sakura was nearing the cave where she'd left Sasori when she heard someone familiar swearing up a storm close by.

"Dang it, what now?" Sakura complained picking up the pace to see what the problem was.

* * *

Sasori tried everything he could think of, and he cursed as the stupid bird lunged for him for the tenth time since it showed up.

"I'm not dead yet so go away!" he yelled trying to scare it away. The bird's beady black eyes glistened evilly as it prepared to attack once again.

Attaching a chakra string to a nearby rock he flicked it at the bird and it hit the stupid creature right in the head. The vulture squawked flapping its wings to get a little distance between the two, so it could study the furious ninja.

Sasori hated that he was so pathetic. Desperation was eating away at him and it would only be a few more minutes until the bird would win. "Come on brat where are you!" he hissed just as it started forward again. During their struggle the bird managed to scratch him a few times, and Sasori gritted his teeth as he felt pain for the first time in twenty years. The stinging wouldn't stop and it surprised him enough that the bird took the opportunity he given it to attack once more.

Sasori grit his teeth and tried to ignore the pain, and concentrated on attaching chakra strings to the bird, immobilizing it. The bird screeched in frustration only a foot away as the chakra strings held it in place, but Sasori knew that it wouldn't last much longer. He cursed as he already felt them start to fade away.

The vulture looked down at its prey triumphantly as the last chakra string disappeared and he went in for the kill.

Sasori's eyes flashed with fear for a second until a kunai flew through the air and killed the bird instantly. Confusion appeared on his face until a pink haired teen jumped down from the tree she was hiding in and walked over to him.

"The amazing Akasuna no Sasori was defeated by a bird. I never thought I would live to see the day," Sakura teased taking the birds body and throwing it out of the cave.

"You brat! I can't believe you made me wait!"

* * *

"Look I'm sorry about leaving you like that"

"…"

"Okay fine I promise not to leave you like that ever again, if you allow me to heal your wounds"

Sasori didn't so much as look at her. After the horrible day he'd experience, he still refused to say anything after the whole vulture incident. He was surprised when she knelt down beside him and started to examine his injures. The slight contact of her skin on his made him cringe and he rolled over hoping that she would stop touching him.

"Hey you're getting some movement back," she said surprised. Of course he didn't say anything, so she decided to do this the forceful way. "Fine but remember you made me do this," she said, and before Sasori could even register what happened he was pinned down beneath her.

"What the hell are you doing!" he yelled as she put both his wrists in one hand and began healing wounds with the other.

She didn't even look at his face as she replied. "I'm healing you so these scratches won't get infected."

Sasori didn't understand why his new body shivered at her touch. Her hands were so warm, but weren't you only supposed to shiver when it was cold? Everytime she moved to a different injury he would flinch, and only after a while his tense body was calmed down a bit by her soothing chakra. They refused to make eye contact the whole time, and only after she got off of him did he finally relax.

"Here," Sakura said tossing him something, "I picked up some new clothes for you while I was out." Sasori watched as it landed in a small pile by his arm.

"Why?" he asked confused at her actions.

She turned around and sighed. "Honestly do you think I'm going to travel with someone who's only piece of clothing is a tattered cloak?" He didn't get a chance to reply as she suddenly had an idea and she scampered out of the cave bringing back the dead bird.

"Um… what are going to do with that?" Sasori asked as she dug out a box of matches.

Pointing at the bird she asked. "How do you feel about eating fried vulture tonight?"

The look of amusement was only answer she got as she started a fire.


	3. All the Small Things

**A/N: First I would like to say thank you to all the people who reviewed, favorited, or added my story to their alerts. It means a lot to me and I love getting reviews from you guys. So please R&R and enjoy the next chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the song All the Small Things by Blink-182**

* * *

**Chapter 3: All the Small Things**

* * *

Sleep was strange for Sasori

As a puppet he had meditated to restore his chakra, having no reason to sleep since his once immortal body rarely ever had the urge to rest. It was interesting to experience the feeling of slowly losing consciousness under the stars with only a small fire and blanket to keep his new human body warm.

It was definitely a lot more peaceful than listening to Deidara's constant nonstop blabbering. He liked the blond to some extent, but that didn't change the fact that he annoyed the crap out of him almost every second he was with him. The only thing about his current situation that pleased him was that Sakura didn't go out of her way to annoy him.

"Wake up already!"

Sasori's eyes shot open to stare at the pink haired kunoichi who wore an aggravated expression on her face as she stared down at him with blazing emerald eyes.

On second thought never mind about that last part

Sasori struggled to get himself into a sitting position, leaning against the rock wall for support, noting how rough and cold it felt to some exposed skin on his back.

Sakura watched him like a hawk, interested that the puppeteer was regaining movement quickly, after being a human puppet thing for twenty or so years. However Sakura gritted her teeth when she noticed the puppet master hadn't put on his new clothes yet. "Why didn't you put these on?" she asked pointing at the pile of brand new clothes near her feet.

Sasori gave her a bored look. "Are you an idiot? I can barely move as it is. Did you just expect me to just stand up and put them on?"

She glared at him for the insult, before giving him a somewhat understanding look. She dropped down to his height and crawled to the other side of the cave so she was right in front of him, his new clothes in one hand while she reached for his cloak with her other one.

Sasori rarely had his moments in freaking out, but when he realized she was going to strip him of the only clothing he had - he freaked.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm not leaving this place until you put these on," she said moving closer.

He panicked as she made contact with the fabric. Quickly forming chakra strings to hold her hand in place. Sakura growled in annoyance. "Look we have to get moving as soon as possible, it's going to take at least a day or two to cross the desert to get to the sand village," she said trying to get the usually impatient ninja to hurry. "You are being such a baby about this."

Sasori rolled his eyes not removing the chakra strings attached to her petite hand that had the power destroy virtually anything. He knew darn well that she could break his chakra strings with little effort. It was obvious to Sasori that she was humoring him for some reason, which made him irritated.

There was an awkward moment of silence until an idea of how to fix this situation popped into Sakura's head. She stood up and Sasori canceled out the chakra strings as she moved over to her backpack, taking out a black blindfold, while her inner screamed at her for missing the chance to see the missing ninja without clothes on. Sakura rolled her eyes telling her inner that she was a bigger pervert than Jiraiya and then to shut up. Turning around with the piece of cloth in her hand, she noticed Sasori visibly tense at the sight of it. "Don't worry it's for me as long as you behave. If you don't then I'll take it off and… well you know the rest," she explained eying the missing ninja with a look of warning before tying it around her eyes.

The process of putting on Sasori's clothes took about an hour, in which the puppeteer barely said anything and Sakura had to fumble around for the right places to put the clothes, praying for nothing to happen that would make this scene even more uncomfortable.

* * *

The rest of the morning Sakura busied herself by packing up all the supplies scattered about on the cave floor. She refused to talk or look at the crimson haired ninja who watched her every movement with emotionless eyes. His stare unnerved her for some reason and Sakura wanted so badly to scream at him to look somewhere else, however he probably wouldn't listen to her.

Attempting to make an escape, Sakura brushed the dirt off her, and exited the cave. The sun was already high in the sky, light pierced through the trees, making a beautiful range of colors in the forest. It felt almost like she was staring at a painting about nature. She wandered around the clearing until she decided to sit at the base of one of the bigger trees to stare at the sky, watching the clouds pass by.

After she'd helped Sasori put on his clothes, Sakura had done a brief search of the area around them, and discovered that the desert was only a quarter of a mile away. She had decided to travel at night that way they wouldn't suffer in the blistering heat. It was extremely hot today and Sakura didn't feel like passing out or getting sunburned. The shade that the trees offered felt amazing and a gentle breeze drifted by every once and a while. Sakura would have been contempt at staying there in her own small paradise for another hour or two, but a faint chakra signature suddenly became known. Sakura almost groaned as she pushed herself to her feet and ran to the cave.

Sasori looked up at her sudden approach and raised an eyebrow at her nervous state. "What is it brat?"

"There are some ninja a little ways off from our campsite. I'm going to check it out, and you'll have to mask your chakra while I'm gone. I can't make a genjutsu or I'll alert them of our presence here." She paused, they were coming closer. Sasori felt it too and instantly masked his chakra; she threw him a thankful look before heading out after the unknown ninjas, anxiety forming in her stomach as she jumped from tree branch to tree branch.

They were close know, Sakura could hear them talking amongst themselves as they traveled on a dirt path that connected the nearby town to the desert. Which meant they were on their way to the sand village Stopping on a tree branch, out of sight from the three ninja she started to study their appearances and possible weaknesses in case a fight broke out. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

There were two walking while the third one was being carried by one of the other two, which meant they were probably injured. It was two boys and a girl, the girl was blonde and carrying something that looked sort of like a weapon. The male carrying the other boy was wearing all black, and it looked like make up was all over his face, and he was talking to the girl who shook her head at all his loud outbursts, while the other guy appeared to be sleeping, his red hair like Sasori's was striking to his pale skin. However there was only one other red head except for Sasori that Sakura knew of, and the fact that they were heading towards the sand village deepened her conclusion on this.

Sakura leaped off the tree branch, landing in a crouched position. She ran to catch up to them calling out their names, "Temari! Kankuro! Gaara!"

They turned around surprised to see the pink haired kunoichi so far away from her village. Temari was the first who spoke, "Hey Sakura, I heard from one of your teammates that you were returning elder Chiyo to the sand village."

Sakura nodded, "Yeah, her body is in that direction," she pointed behind her shoulder. Sakura looked over to Gaara who was being carried by Kankuro. He looked as if he was asleep, and even from this distance she could tell he was in pretty bad shape, but at least he was alive. "So Naruto saved Gaara after all."

Temari smiled looking affectionately at her little brother. "Yes with everyone's help we managed to bring him back. He was so close to death we almost didn't make it in time to save him." Temari shifted her gaze back to Sakura, "Actually we can take elder Chiyo's body off your hands for you. We're heading back home anyways."

"Are you sure?" Sakura asked concerned about troubling them further.

"We'll be fine we are sand shinobi after all." Temari told her confidently, which made Sakura relax somewhat about her request.

Sakura thanked her, before making a shadow clone to fetch lady Chiyo's body. She couldn't risk leading them back to where Sasori was hiding. That would cause a disaster that she would like to avoid.

* * *

They waited in silence until the clone returned and handed over lady Chiyo's body to Temari who looked at the elder with sadness etched on her face. "Okay let's go Kankuro." The two ninja said their goodbyes to Sakura who watched them disappear into the distance before walking back camp.

It always made Sakura depressed when she said goodbye for some reason. Ever since Sasuke left her, she had always had a black hole in her heart, where their bond had been severed. Although Sasuke had never been close to her, they were teammates and she would have done anything to stop him from leaving. The fear of her friends abandoning her still hadn't left Sakura completely. She forced herself to relax, making a mental reminder not to leave Sasori alone to long or else he would get attacked by another vulture.

Smiling at the thought, she took off in the direction of their temporary camp with an idea of what to do next in mind.

* * *

When Sakura retuned later on in the afternoon, Sasori felt immeadate relief as he watched her enter the cave. He hated how his once tense body relaxed at the sight of her; this new body was making him so pathetic.

The girl said nothing and finally after waiting one whole minute Sasori couldn't take it anymore. "What happened brat?" he asked flicking the dirt at his side impatiently.

She leaned up against the side of the cave and sighed. "I gave up lady Chiyo's body to Temari and her brothers," she told him quietly not mentioning that Gaara was still alive.

Sasori didn't so much as react to the news. "Then can we get going then, I'd rather die again than stay in this cave another second," he urged. She nodded slinging the backpack onto her back which had all their supplies in it already. Then turning to Sasori she noticed how he grimaced as she reached to pick him up.

"Do you hate being touched that much?" Sakura asked not even realizing that she said anything until he turned to glare at her.

"Yes," he answered staring at the cave floor. It was something that he had hated ever since his parents had died. After the incident with his parent puppets when he was about five years old, Sasori slowly became more and more anti-social. It was a defense mechanism so he wouldn't become attached to anything. It was easier this way. There would be no bonds which meant he wouldn't have to go through losing anyone close to his heart ever again. There wouldn't be any more pain.

Wrapping an arm around his waist Sakura helped the missing ninja to his feet, and he clung to her surprised that she wasn't picking him up right away. "I want you to walk as long as you can so you can start regaining some strength back, although if you get tired tell me and I'll carry you the rest of the way."

Sasori nodded, most of his attention was focused on remaining upright at the moment. "Where are we going brat?"

Helping him put an arm around her shoulders she answered. "Back to the town I visited yesterday. There's a little inn there that's very nice and we both need to rest before we head back to Konoha."

Sasori didn't reply, all his concentration was on the small task of walking unsteadily towards the town. Hoping he would be able to keep walking normally (with Sakura's help) before they entered the place. It would be really awkward having Sakura carry him to the inn with other people around to watch. He gritted his teeth determined as they slowly but steadily headed towards their destination.

* * *

Only with raw determination, Sasori was able to walk into town, without the brat carrying him. He still had his arm around her shoulders and her arm supporting most of his weight around his waist, but still it was a major improvement. He shouldn't have been able to do this for another week or so.

Sakura wondered about this the whole way to the little inexpensive inn, she would question him later on it, since they were already at the door of the inn. The owner's face lit up in recognition as Sakura and Sasori entered the place. She felt Sasori flinch as the door slammed shut behind him, his breathing quickened, and his eyes darted around the place as if looking for possible exits to escape to. Frowning slightly at his reaction, Sakura decided to ignore it for now shuffling over to the counter to get a room for the two of them. The owner told her the price and Sakura reached into her pocket with her free hand and exchanged the money for the room key before starting down the hallway to the left.

The lights flickered on and off in the place as they stopped at the door to their room. Last time she'd been here the place had seemed like heaven, but now she wished she could afford a better place to stay. Very much annoyed with the amount of money she'd been given for the mission grumbled to herself just as Sasori's grip tightened slightly around her. Wasting no time since Sasori was leaning on her heavily now for support; she slid the key into the lock and opened the door to their room.

The room was as small as the last one she'd rented, with a tiny kitchen to the left, a clean bathroom to the right, a table that only one or two people could sit at, and two beds that were only five feet apart.

"Wow," Sasori said sarcastically. They hadn't moved from the entrance yet. Sakura was about ready to enter when a cockroach scurried into view. Fighting the urge to scream, she about ready to leave when Sasori's legs buckled beneath him and Sakura caught him before he hit the floor.

"Damn it," he mumbled as he started to feel the effects of his long walk.

_Okay it's either sleeping here or on the streets_, Sakura thought to herself. Looking down at Sasori's exhuasted figure in her arms she felt herself give in and decided to stay the night at the crummy place.

Dumping Sasori on one of the beds, she turned around facing her own, and made one of the next hardest choices of her life. Steeling herself she crawled under the sheets and prayed that she wouldn't wake up with bugs on her. Shivering at the thought she shifted her gaze to Sasori's sleeping form one last time before giving in to her exhausted body's need to sleep. The last thought that passed through her mind before drifting off to sleep was all her friends back at home, waiting for her to return. _Don't worry guys I'll be home soon._

The two unconscious ninja didn't even notice that across the street a lone figure on top of one of the many shops, had been watching the two since they first entered the town. Their thoughts were concentrated on the dark events they had in store for the two unsuspecting ninjas.

* * *

**A/N: I love Gaara too much to kill him, and since Sasori travels in Hiruko all the time no one in the town recognized him. **

**Reviews are very much appreciated!**


	4. Light Up the Sky

**A/N: I can't believe it took me this long to update. I'm very sorry my life's been busy recently and now I have exams coming up. But on a brighter note this chapter should be much better than the other one, and I've finally made a chapter over 3,000 words. (I'm so happy!) Please R&R and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the song Light Up the Sky by Yellowcard**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Light Up the Sky**

* * *

Never in a million years would Sakura have imagined herself having a bowl of ramen with an S rank criminal at nine o'clock in the morning. They'd left the inn early so that they could get something to eat before they started traveling again. Both of them were starving and Sakura didn't want to use any of her limited supplies just yet.

Sipping on the delicious broth, Sakura glanced at the crimson haired ninja and found him staring at the bowl with a strange look in his eyes. It was almost as if he didn't know what to do with it.

Rolling her eyes, Sakura pointed at his bowl of Ramen and told him. "This stuff is called food and you need to eat it or else you'll die." She set her chop sticks back on the table. "You should be thankful I'm not forcing you to eat the leftover solider pills."

Their morning together had not been going that well so far ever since Sakura woke up with a cockroach on her. She'd flipped out and screamed nonstop which caused Sasori yelp and fall off his bed. She wanted to laugh at the memory, but she also knew that Sasori was still pissed about the whole thing so she kept it to herself as finished her bowl of ramen in silence. Although she hoped that he wouldn't end up staring at the food the whole time and actually eat something.

Sasori's jaw clenched and he mumbled something incoherently to himself. Turning slightly towards Sakura he asked in a suspicious tone. "Why are you being nice to me?" Keeping his intense gaze on her he continued at a volume so low Sakura barely could make out the words. "Is it because you still want more information about Orochimaru or do you have other intentions in store, girl?"

Her eyes widened, and Sakura realized just then that she'd forgotten to tell Kakashi about the information that could give them the chance they needed to bring Sasuke back. The whole fight against the puppet master sitting next to her would have all been for nothing if she didn't pass on the information he'd willingly given her before he'd died.

Sasori smirked when he noticed the frustrated look on Sakura's face. "Let me guess… you forgot to tell your teammates the information that I told you. Considering your determination to beat it out of me before, I'm guessing that it was quite crucial for you to tell your teammates too. You're not that smart are you brat?"

"Shut up and eat your ramen," Sakura hissed, her eyes burning with anger. Her grip on the table started to cause dents in the wood from the amount of pressure she was applying to it. How could she be so stupid? Her teammate was out there somewhere with a psychopath and she was the only one that could provide her village with the information needed in order to bring him back home.

Sakura let out a harsh breath in agitation and released her grip on the table. Her bad mood never did die down though, so Sasori remained quiet in an attempt to not get punched by the easily angered kunoichi.

Sasori returned to his food and tentatively picked up his pair of chop sticks. He opened his mouth and hesitated slightly before eating the delicious noodles, which tasted just as good as when he was human. Twenty long years without food had been depressing; nevertheless, it had to be sacrificed in order for him to become his art.

What a mistake that was.

Sasori devoured the rest of the bowl within a few minutes because the ramen was the most amazing and delicious thing he'd ever eaten, and he didn't want to keep the brat waiting. No matter how much she deserved to wait.

Their waitress came over to their table a few moments later, and Sakura paid for their breakfast before heading out towards the woods again with a tired, agitated Sasori right behind her.

* * *

It wasn't long until Sasori ended up getting a piggy back ride from Sakura. He complained a lot at first until he finally gave up when the stubborn girl wouldn't listen. He rested his head on her shoulder feeling a mixture of embarrassment, relaxation, and boredom. This whole "Captive" thing had been far too easy so far for the girl. Shouldn't someone from the Akatsuki notice by now that he was missing? It wasn't that hard to figure out that he hadn't reported back to them in the last few days and his body was missing.

Of course that's when he remembered.

_Shoot I switched bodies, so they'll think the real me is the one pinned to wall, in the ruined Akatsuki hideout. Crap!_

Letting out a huff of annoyance which didn't go unnoticed by Sakura, Sasori tried to come up with a way out of his newest predicament, but nothing came to mind. Without his puppets (or his recent puppet body) he was practically useless besides his ability to make foot long chakra strings. It was moments like these that Sasori wished he had his annoying blond haired partner to help him out. At least the brat was skilled enough to get them out of tight situations like this.

Suddenly wishing that he'd just remained dead, Sasori let his mind wander onto nothing in particular. While meanwhile Sakura was trying to come up with a way to tell the others about the information she'd received from Sasori. They only had one week to get to the Tenchi bridge in Kusagakure and this might be their last chance at getting Sasuke back.

* * *

The two ninjas remained silent throughout their whole trek through the woods which was fine for Sasori, but Sakura thought she was about to go insane. Normally she would be fine with silence, she found it quite relaxing, and the sounds of nature around her put her at ease. However, when a former Akatsuki member is being given a piggy back ride and he hasn't said so much as a single word in the last few hours they'd been traveling, anyone would bound to get a little nervous.

"Soooo… what do you want to talk about?" she asked trying to make a conversation and failing miserably at it. She mentally face palmed herself as the words rushed out of her mouth.

Although she couldn't see it, Sasori rolled his eyes and responded with, "I don't know."

No one spoke after that for another few minutes.

Growling in frustration Sakura stopped and decided to take a break for a while on the side of the road. She set Sasori down carefully and even propped him up against a tree while she sat down and leaned back against another tree not far away. Sasori avoided making eye contact with the pink haired kunoichi sitting across from him, but still he could feel her questioning gaze on him which made him twitch uncomfortably. Stupid brat

Changing into a different position so that she could wrap her arms around her legs and prop her head up on her knees, Sakura then asked one of the questions that was irritating her. "Is there a reason why you're healing so fast?"

Sasori shrugged and didn't answer her. Instead he played with a few blades of grass which tickled his fingertips. It was strange how interesting the world was now that he was human again. The best part of it was irritating the brat though, who was practically fuming a few meters away.

Resisting the urge to strangle him, Sakura tried really hard to calm herself down before asking him some more questions.

"Alright then…. how do you know so much about Orochimaru?"

Sasori showed no signs that he even heard her and it wasn't long until Sakura felt the rest of her good mood slipping away. She had never been one for patience, usually she would pound the living daylights out of anyone who would pointedly ignore her like this, but she knew she had to at least try to get some more information out of him. Then it came to her, the one question that she'd been dying to ask him ever since he'd died.

"Fine can you at least answer this?" Sakura continued on cautiously not knowing how he'd respond. "Why did you…. kill yourself?"

The slightest widening of his eyes was his only reaction to the question. He even met her gaze for a brief moment before staring at the grass at his side again which swayed in the breeze that drifted through the forest. Tension between them began to escalate uncomfortably and when Sakura was almost positive that he wouldn't respond his lips parted a little to give his answer that she'd been dying to hear.

His response was so quiet that Sakura wasn't sure she'd heard him right. However it sounded like. "I wanted all the pain to end."

He pushed himself off the ground and shakily headed off in the direction of the Leaf village which took Sakura by surprise. She mentally repeated his words over and over in her head like a broken record as if she was trying to find the reason for his pain. Was it the Sand village's teachings like lady Chiyo had said? Was it lady Chiyo that had caused him pain? Or was it something else entirely?

By the time she had given up on figuring out the answer it was past noon. Sakura learned that during that time the silence between them was actually quite enjoyable and she made a mental note to not ask any more personal questions for a while.

* * *

Sakura caught herself staring at Sasori when he nearly tripped and fell over for the millionth time that day. Some part of her wanted to help him, yet another part of her nagged at her saying that he deserved it. He was evil after all, but still…

She opened her mouth to tell him not to push himself too hard when a chakra presence made itself known. Sasori stiffened and Sakura went into a defensive position with a kunai in hand. They quickly went back to back and searched the area for the source of the intruders. If it was possible for something to feel completely wrong and right at the same time Sakura was pretty sure that was what she was experiencing right now. Even though it would be their first fight together and most likely their last, it felt almost natural to have Sasori by her side. She was shocked by this realization so much that when he turned around to make eye contact with her for a brief moment, Sakura felt herself flinch as she stared into his mysterious, calculating brown eyes.

Sasori leaned back to whisper over his shoulder. "There's twenty rogue ninja headed this way and they'll be here shortly."

Stunned Sakura nodded and wondered how he possibly could have sensed them and could sense how many there are. They were at least a mile away! All she could tell was that there were a lot of them that were approaching, fast.

Holding her breath she counted down from ten in her head to calm her rapidly beating heart down. She needed to be able to fight and think logically at the same time. If she didn't many things could go wrong and she couldn't, no wouldn't allow that to happen.

The intense stillness was the only indicator now that something was wrong. Getting a good feeling for her surroundings before the battle began, Sakura noted that they were in a large clearing, but they were still in the middle of this seemingly never ending forest. There would be no help for miles to come.

Sasori's calm, quiet voice shattered Sakura's thoughts once more. "They're here."

Those two words sent shivers up her spine, his words were proven to be truthful however when she caught sight of the group of rogue ninja dead ahead of her. Their faces were covered by masks that reminded her Kakashi-sensei's mask, and they had coal black eyes that would have broken her resolve in a heartbeat if she wasn't so stubborn. The cruelty that was held in each and every one would have terrified any normal person. Each also had unique weapons, and different chakra levels. To make matters worse they all seemed to be at jounin level or higher.

There was barely any warning when part of the group broke off from the others and charged at the two of them. Sakura let out a battle cry and smashed her fist into the ground, knocking most of them off balance and successfully causing one ninja to fly backwards and hit his head on a nearby tree which made him lose consciousness.

Sasori watched Sakura's display of her overwhelming strength with a new feeling of respect. Having witnessed firsthand what she could do, Sasori was impressed that she could still pull it off after surviving a battle to the death with him only two days ago. A normal ninja's chakra would take at least a week before its back normal again after an intense battle. This kunoichi was something else entirely.

Wheeling on her oncoming attacker she slashed him with her kunai knife and sent them flying with a chakra enhanced kick to their stomach. Without hesitation she threw the kunai in Sasori's direction which nailed a rouge ninja in the chest. The idiot was trying to sneak up on her captive while she wasn't looking, and even though she still didn't like Sasori after all he'd done. She refused to let him die after all that had happened so far.

Confused but grateful, Sasori quickly snatched the kunai out of the man's chest and prepared to help the brat out with the remaining ninja in the clearing.

More charged them, attempting to overwhelm them in numbers, and this time Sakura felt sharp weapons graze her skin on occasion and warm blood coated her hands which was a mixture now of her enemies and her own. Sasori wasn't doing much better and although he was holding his own, he was already in pretty bad shape. This fight had to end soon because without Sasori she would fall victim to these ninjas before long.

One of the bolder ones aided by one of his comrades charged directly at Sakura who smirked and prepared to give them such a hard beating that they would be lucky if they remembered their names afterwards. However things didn't go as planned when her surroundings began to swirl and the whole battle field started to become distorted before her eyes.

Genjutsu!

She made the release sign and broke their hold of her, but it was too late. The first rogue ninja had already grabbed her in a headlock. Further back his partner released the genjutsu sign, seeing that she'd broken out of it, he had an aggravating, satisfied look on his face as he stared at the captured pink haired kunoichi.

Letting out a screech of fury that alerted Sasori to her current predicament, Sakura tried to kick, punch, and bite her way out of the man's hold, but he was simply too strong. Sakura with a defeated look in her eyes gazed helplessly at Sasori.

It was up to him now

With the main threat out of the way, the fourteen rogue ninjas that were left (minus the one who held Sakura captive) ran at Sasori with weapons in hand. The fight would be over in a matter of seconds now. Both their lives were at the mercy of Sasori's next move if he screwed up he would be dead and her fate would be sealed.

Sasori's next actions surprised Sakura as he kept his determined gaze locked with hers even though he was at the doorstep of death he looked at her with indescribable emotion swirling in his brown eyes. She didn't waste any of her precious time left pondering about it though, as she watched her somewhat normal day turn into one filled with misery as each second brought them closer to the end.

To bad things never went according to plan.

BANG!

The force of the explosion caused Sakura's captor to fall over, bringing her down with him. She landed on top of him, successfully kneeing him in the stomach. He let out a loud. "Oof," as the air rushed out of his lungs. Jabbing her elbow into his head to knock him out as a parting gift, Sakura fought her way through the smoke and debris in a desperate attempt to find Sasori. He could be anywhere in this mess right now.

A rogue ninja bumped into her nearly making her fall over as they ran away in pure terror. Anyone that were still alive after the explosion, fled for their lives. Sakura was apparently forgotten as some more ran past her in order to escape. She thanked whoever set off the explosion mentally before making her way towards a red blob a good distance away. As she neared she realized that her horrible ordeal wasn't quite over with yet.

Sasori was on his side gasping for air, glaring defiantly up at his enemy while a rogue ninja posed above him with a katana in hand ready to finish him off.

"Nooooo!" Sakura cried out sprinting towards him as fast as she could.

_I'm not going to make it!_

The rouge ninja took a step forward and brought the sword down only to have it blocked by a cocky, blond teenager who'd jumped in front of Sasori at the last second.

Both Sasori and Sakura's eyes widened as they took in the sight of Deidara with a sword in his gut, but even through the excruciating pain he must have been feeling, he managed to grin and throw a spider explosive onto the man's face. It detonated on contact which made a morbid sight for any onlooker, but to the blond it was a work of art.

"You idiot," Deidara said to the now dead body at his feet. "If you mess with my partner, you're asking for a death wish, yeah."

No one moved or spoke for a while. It was almost too good to be true, help had come after all! He looked fine from Sakura's perspective besides the sword wound, but as she moved towards the two, Deidara's body got over the initial shock of being stabbed and he collapsed on his side beside a stunned Sasori.

* * *

**A/N: Feel free to ask any questions and reviews are greatly appreciated! **

**Also I would like to thank Squirrel304 for reminding me to upload this chapter. **


	5. Some Say

**A/N: This is another one of those chapters where I really like what happens in it, and I knew what I wanted to happen in it, but every time I wanted to type it out, I spaced out and couldn't. So I'm sorry about the wait. I'm trying to update every two weeks or so, but the good news is this is the longest chapter yet! Anyways I hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: I will never own Naruto or the song Some Say by Sum 41**

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**Chapter 5: Some Say**

* * *

It hurt Sasori to see Deidara taken down before him for some reason. It wasn't like he liked the brat. No in fact the brat annoyed him; he was a nuisance that believed that true art was fleeting. Only an idiot would believe in that, but still he had been his partner and they had had some interesting arguments in the past. He couldn't just stand by and let his previous partner fall victim to these insignificant pieces of trash.

Sasori's hands fisted at his sides. Oh yes he would make them pay for what they did to Deidara.

More chakra signatures were closing in fast. They had probably been attracted to all the commotion they had been causing. Sasori's eyes narrowed as he concentrated on coming up with a new plan of action.

Deidara only had fifteen minutes at best before he bled to death, Sakura had exhausted most of her chakra and was almost running on empty, and he was tired physically but still had plenty of chakra left over….

_I got it! I hope this works._

"Brat, I've got a plan," Sasori announced, gaining Sakura's attention. She was currently staring at Deidara in shock as if she couldn't believe he'd done just now.

She straightened and began healing one of the deep cuts on her right arm. "Okay what's your plan?"

"Can I use your body to fight?"

"…."

"…."

"W-what!"

"Shut up," he hissed, "do you want to give away our location to the enemy. There's another group heading this way and what I meant was can you be my puppet during the fight?"

"Hmmm… no."

Sasori sighed. "Listen brat we don't have much time. I lack the physical energy to fight and you barely have any chakra. If we team up we should be able to win, and save Deidara's life." He explained hurriedly.

"And why should I care about him? He helped kidnapped my friend, and he tried to steal Naruto as well." She exclaimed quietly trying not to raise her voice.

"Look can we worry about this afterwards. Do you or do you not agree to be my puppet?"

There was a few seconds of tense silence between the two before Sakura gave her answer. "Fine, but you better not get me injured or I will break every bone in your body and make you wish you had never came back to life."

Sasori had to resist the urge to roll his eyes as he lifted his hands to attach chakra strings to Sakura back. All the time he'd spent alone working on performing the puppet master jutsu hadn't been for nothing at least. If he concentrated hard enough he could keep this up for at least a few minutes. He tried to make them as thin as possible, so that they would be undetectable when the other shinobi arrived.

The places where the chakra strings were connected to Sakura's back felt cool and reassuring. It wasn't uncomfortable at all, and they didn't restrict her movements either. They almost reminded her of lady Chiyo's chakra strings, but for some reason Sasori's felt more reassuring, controlled, and safer even.

"I'll try not to let you get damaged, brat," Sasori said under his breath as Sakura walked over to stand a few feet away from him and Deidara.

For the first time Sakura could see all the dead bodies in the clearing as she turned around in the direction of where the enemy was approaching. It sickened her and made her wince slightlyas she directed her gaze somewhere else. A huge crater stuck out in the middle of the mess where the bomb had exploded, and the rest of the clearing was also a mess from Sakura brutal, chakra enhanced kicks and punches.

There was no gentle breeze like before this had all started, and the whole forest remained deathly quiet as ten figures entered the ruined clearing.

The one in front looked around the place with cold, black eyes before settling his gaze on Sakura and Sasori. "Are you the ones responsible for killing my men?" He asked in a deadly calm voice.

Sakura could tell right away that this person had much more battle experience than herself. His chakra levels surpassed her own, which made her extremely on edge and cautious, but it still didn't compare to Sasori's chakra which had been off the charts when she'd fought against him.

"We are partially responsible," Sasori answered back sounding bored even though Sakura could hear the small bit of agitation that had leaked into his voice as well.

The rouge didn't react to Sasori's words, but Sakura could clearly see the faint look of interest as he caught sight of Deidara wounded on the ground behind them. "Deidara of the Akatsuki," he murmured. "He's worth a lot of money."

He turned halfway around to his followers and ordered instantly. "Capture them alive."

Half the group charged the two ninjas, and with the slightest twitch of three fingers Sakura was running at them head on, at full speed.

Sasori stayed where he was at guarding Deidara while he raised his right hand to make Sakura jump and knee the closest rouge ninja in the face. They groaned and fell to the ground behind Sakura as she landed gracefully like a cat before she lunged forward to grab the closest ninja's legs and trip them to the ground.

Sasori smirked, and quickly twisted his wrist to make Sakura roll in order to avoid a few shuriken thrown in her direction. By now a most of them had caught on that Sasori was controlling her somehow, but what they couldn't figure out how he was so skilled at controlling the girl's movements.

Letting out a battle cry, Sakura began a series of taijutsu moves with another rouge ninja and was suddenly thankful that Sasori was helping her for the first time. She wasn't exactly skilled at taijutsu and in a normal situation she would have been defeated already.

_Alright three down so far, I think we can do this_, she thought as she successfully defeated the next rouge with a direct chakra enhanced punch to the face.

Every time one of the rouges tried to attack Sasori, Sakura would quickly intervene, making it nearly impossible for anyone to get near the puppet master. They wouldn't be able to go on much longer fighting the pink haired kunoichi.

The leader of the group of rouges observed the battle silently and gave the silent command to two of his men to finish it. They both nodded in understanding and disappeared quickly into the trees surrounding the forest.

Sasori watched their exchange, and knew instantly that they were up to something. _I wish I had Hiruko right now-_, he thought as he pulled Sakura away from an earth style jutsu aimed at her. -t_hat way I could attack and defend at the same time._

With most of his attention focused on keeping Sakura alive, Sasori didn't notice the danger until it was too late. Something stung his neck, breaking his concentration on Sakura long enough for one of the rouges to get his hands on her. _Crap!_

Quickly the drug began to take affect and the world around him began swaying uncomfortably.

"It's over for you and the girl," the leader told them from the other side of the clearing. "You'll be unconscious in a matter of seconds."

"Let me go!" Sakura screamed out in outrage. The rouge holding her only tightened his grip on her and grinned as she gasped out in pain.

_Don't hurt her, _Sasori thought desperately, for once not caring that she was technically his enemy. As he fell to his knees, he watched her struggle in an attempt to break free. The fierce light in her emerald eyes never once wavering, as she broke the rouge's hold on her, only to be caught by another. He never lost sight of her hopeless struggle until the drug's affects became too much for him and he passed out beside his previous partner who watched Sasori be defeated before him.

"Sa… so…. ri," Deidara called out weakly through the intense pain.

"Alright take them and let's head out to the base for now. Tomorrow we'll exchange them for some quick money," the leader ordered before heading in the direction of his base. _If all goes according to plan, I'll be rich in no time at all_, he thought to himself as three of his subordinates grabbed Sakura, Sasori, and Deidara before heading after their leader.

* * *

(Flashback)

Sasori watched people on the busy street below from his bedroom window, as the villagers walked past his house, living their own busy lives. It seemed like no one had time for him anymore since his parents left for that one mission.

Feeling upset and depressed that they had been sent on another one before they had the chance to come home and say hi, Sasori found himself becoming restless and wanting to do something rather than just wait for them to return.

Everything seemed dull and boring in his room. It was another one of those rare cloudy days in the sand village which made his small room darker than usual. Toys and random ninja accessories lay scattered on the floor. Memories of his mommy and daddy playing with it together made him sigh and want to do something adventuress for a change.

_I should sneak up on granny Chiyo!_

Smiling mischievously at the idea, he silently crept downstairs and hid behind the wall that lead into the living room. _I'm just like mommy and daddy now. I can't wait to become a strong ninja like them. _Carefully peeking out from behind the wall, he saw granny Chiyo on the living room couch clutching a small picture in her hands. She looked sad which immediately it made Sasori feel bad about wanting to jump out and scare her.

Joining her in the living room, he sat on the floor in front of her and asked innocently. "What's wrong granny Chiyo?"

The elder jumped at the sound of her grandson's voice. "Oh n-nothing's wrong dear, I was just looking at an old picture of your father." She told him as cheerfully as she could manage. The whole time her conscious kept repeating. _He's dead. They're both dead._

"Oh okay, I was worried because it looked like you were crying granny," Sasori said worried. _Granny isn't supposed to look sad…_

"Sasori," the elder said in that same fake cheery voice, "why don't you hang out in your room for a while. I'll cook us dinner in an hour, okay?"

"Okay," Sasori agreed, even though he frowned at her strange behavior. Ever since two nights ago she'd been acting very odd. Even though he was only five he could still sense the change in his grandmother.

_I'll ask mommy and daddy about it when they get back. They'll know why she's been acting so weird,_ he thought happily. _Then we'll eat some ramen together, and play hide and go seek._

Climbing back up the stairs he could have sworn he'd heard his grandma curse and begin to cry again. Feeling torn between wanting to go back downstairs and comfort her or return to his room like he'd been told, he finally reassured himself that she was fine and he'd just imagined it. _Besides she'd said to go back to my room,_ he reminded himself as he shut his bedroom door behind him.

* * *

Sasori's head was pounding as he began to regain consciousness. He placed one hand on his forehead gingerly and resisted the urge to groan in pain and annoyance. Where in the heck was he now? It felt like he'd slept on cement all night.

"Get off of me!" A furious kunoichi shrieked.

Crash!

"Ow... what the hell was that for, yeah!"

"You were sleeping on top of me!"

"You do realize that I had no choice in the matter, un. Blame the perverts who threw me on top of you, when they tossed us in here, yeah." Deidara snapped, picking himself off the floor. He did not appreciate being woken up by get punched into a wall, especially after being majorly injured for over a week. He'd not gotten a break since he'd captured that stupid jinchuuriki and now he was stuck with this stupid girl!

"You could have at least-!"

"Shut up you two, I'm getting a headache already, and I've only been awake for ten seconds." Sasori snapped, successfully stopping their argument. Pushing himself up into a sitting position and leaning against a nearby wall for support he then asked them. "Where are we?"

"I think we're in a cell underground somewhere," Sakura answered somewhere to his right.

"Yeah and I still have a sword wound, yeah." Deidara mumbled.

Puzzled Sasori asked him. "How are you still alive? You should have bled to death, brat." With a wound that severe not even the brat could have made it out alive. The enemy must have healed it enough to stop the bleeding at least.

"I think someone helped me. Um… is there any reason why we're in a small cell with this creature, yeah?"

Sakura gritted her teeth. "What did you just call me?"

"Creature, yeah."

Crash!

"Ouch! Will you stop hitting me, yeah!"

"Then stop insulting and annoying me!"

"Shut up!" Sasori yelled, holding his head in one hand he tried to think of a way out the mess they had gotten into. If only his head would stop hurting. Being human again was such a pain. At least as a puppet he didn't have to suffer from headaches when Deidara annoyed him like he was currently along with the brat. Come to think of it, both of them had the same nickname now... dang it!_ I can't call them both brat!_

Sighing, he slowly rubbed his temples while drowning out the new argument Sakura and Deidara had started, as he tried to understand the current situation they were in.

"Okay so let me get this straight," he began, "You two have no clue as to where we are exactly, the enemy managed to defeat and capture us, and Deidara is an idiot who nearly died. Did someone at least try to break open the door?"

"…."

_Alright I'm stuck with a bunch of idiots…. great._

Sakura stood up and dusted herself off. She had gained back some chakra which should be enough to bust them all out of here. Her hand clenched into a fist and blue chakra formed around her hand like a flame. "Okay stand back." She told them, hearing the sounds of movement as the two shifted towards the back of the cell just before she lunged at the door.

There was a loud bang as her punch shattered the wooden door. The remaining pieces scattered on the floor in front of them, and Sasori almost smirked at the scared expression on Deidara's face even though it was hard to make out in the poor lighting. Without hesitation, Sasori and Sakura rushed out into the hallway to check for any signs of the enemy.

Two guards were staring at them in shock, but Sakura quickly charged the closest one to her and knocked him out in an instant. The other tried to escape only to be held in place by an invisible force (Chakra Strings). He yelped as he struggled in vain to be released, only to get knocked out by Sakura who quickly took care of him before walking back to Sasori.

"Is it safe, un?" Deidara asked still inside the cell.

Sasori closed his eyes and felt for any other traces of chakra nearby and felt none in the area they were in. "We're safe for now, but we have to get moving. Brat, can you run?"

"I think so, yeah."

"Then let's hurry up. I don't want to stay in this place any longer."

"Right, un."

Both Sakura and Sasori waited while the blond bit his lower lip to stop himself from groaning in pain. It felt like he'd just been ripped apart, beaten up, and stabbed.

Oh wait he had

"Hurry up Deidara," Sasori growled in annoyance.

Deidara stumbled out into the hallway breathing heavily and trying his best to remain upright.

_How in the world is he going to keep up with us?_ Sakura wondered before turning in the direction of the hallway leading out of there. _Also how is Sasori this strong? A normal person would be in bed for weeks after that powerful of a jutsu being used on them. Unless? No he couldn't be… could he?_ She glanced in his direction where he was mocking Deidara who in return snapped back at whatever he was saying. _Alright now's not the time to worry about this. We have to come up with a plan to get us out of here._

_Wait a minute… us? I can't be seriously thinking about considering them becoming my allies._

_"Well you were awesome when Sasori used you as his puppet."_

_Shut up inner me!_

_"Come on they're both hot!"_

"Shut up!"

It took her three seconds to realize that she'd said that out loud. Both the boys were staring at her like she'd gone insane too.

_"Nice."_

"I t-think we should go that way," she mumbled pointing to the left. For once she was thankful for the crappy lighting since it covered her now bright red face. Sasori nodded in agreement before heading in that direction while Deidara walked slowly behind them trying not to limp.

"I can't sense anyone in this base. It seems like they've abandoned it except for the two weak guards back there. I wonder…" Sasori thought out loud.

There was a few seconds of silence before Deidara decided to speak up.

"Hmph… so Sasori, why are you with this… um…"

"Say creature again and I'll rip your arms off!"

"Too bad because I've already had that done this week. At the moment I've got only one arm and I plan on keeping it attached, yeah."

Sasori sighed. "Will you two stop," Sakura shut her mouth when she caught the pissed off look on Sasori's face. "Anyways, I'm her prisoner apparently." He told the blond who stared at his partner's back in disbelief.

It took him a few seconds for it to sink in before he began laughing. Which only added to Sasori's agitated state. "Sasori… you were defeated…. by an old woman…. and a girl with pink hair, yeah?" Deidara asked in between laughs.

Sasori whirled around and snapped. "Shut up!"

"That's hilarious, yeah!"

Sakura rolled her eyes, as she could barely make out Sasori's threatening glare that he directed at Deidara before storming off ahead. If looks could kill...

"Ow!" Deidara grumbled, as he agitated his wounds again. It hurt so bad now that it was hard to remain standing.

"Do you want me to carry you?" Sakura asked, tantalizingly.

"No, yeah."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I said, no, yeah."

She chuckled under her breath in amusement before ran to catch up to Sasori who had stopped in the middle of the hallway.

"What's wrong?"

He turned to her and pointed directly in front of him. "It's a dead end. Apparently we either went the wrong way or we could be caught in some sort of underground maze that they know we can't escape from."

Sakura frowned, reaching out only to find that what he'd said was true. Unfortunately, they didn't have time to waste because the rouge ninjas would be back soon and they weren't in any condition to fight a full scale battle. "Alright then, what do we do?"

Sasori turned towards Deidara who was leaning against the side of the hallway as casually as possible. Doing his best not to show how much pain he was in, he slowly turned to look at Sasori and asked. "What, yeah?"

"I need you to use some clay bugs to crawl through the dirt above us and see how far we are from the surface."

Deidara grinned, putting his good hand into his pants pocket and dug out some leftover clay the rouges didn't take from him. Those jerks had freaking stolen his clay pouches! As soon as he could he was going to have to get some new ones. _How annoying._

He molded the clay as fast as he could and within a few seconds they were crawling up the dirt walls of the rouges base until they burrowed into the ceiling. "I'll know how far in about a minute, yeah."

"Deidara?"

"Yeah Sasori?"

"We're taking the girl with us." He told his previous partner in a tone of voice that warned him not to argue with him. No one spoke as both Deidara and Sakura's eyes widened in shock.

"What!" They both asked in unison.

Okay, Sakura had remembered that she was technically with two of the most powerful ninja in the world, but it totally slipped from her mind that they could easily ditch her in this place. _Wait what's going to happen after this? What are they going to do with me? Oh crap! I just lost my chance at bringing home an S rank criminal who probably had tons of information about the Akatsuki. Wow a lot can happen in one day I suppose… wait how much time has passed since we've been unconscious?_

"Besides I have an offer I want to make with her that she might find very useful." He said calmly, while staring at the wall in boredom.

Next to her Deidara grumbled about having to traveling with another moody person, and Sakura had to resist punching him again. _Dang it! He's more annoying than Naruto!_

Then out of the blue Deidara jumped to his feet and announced. "We're only fifteen feet underground, yeah!"

Sasori shifted impatiently. "Alright then hurry up brat."

"With pleasure, yeah." Forming a hand sign he quickly warned them. "Stand back unless you want to get buried alive after the explosion."

Wait explosion? Suddenly Sakura felt very unsafe being so close to the bomber and quickly backed up as far as the hallway allowed her to.

"Katsu!"

Boom!

"Alright let's go, yeah." Deidara who had been creating a clay bird in his hand the whole time tossed it in the air and made a hand sign to enlarge it before jumping onto its back. It landed on the ground with a light thud. Deidara turned around to look back at Sasori and Sakura who were currently giving him a look that said: I am not getting on that thing in a million years!

Rolling his eyes he told them. "The artistic explosion I just created is going to alert every shinobi in a ten mile radius. If we travel this way we'll be undetectable and a lot safer than if we traveled by foot, yeah."

Sakura knowing that he was right, flashed an uncertain look towards the bird before crawling onto its back behind Deidara. Now all that was left was Sasori.

"Come on. Are you scared of heights, yeah?" Deidara asked watching his partner glare at him and the bird, but he held his ground. Sure he would allow the pink haired brat to carry him, and he could travel inside a human puppet for days, but there was no way he would ever fly, especially when he was a weak human again. The thought of being that far up in the air made his legs tremble nervously. Now that he could experience the joys of fear, anxiety, and stress he was not about to do anything that would bring out those useless emotions. This whole situation had become so irritating to him.

However, the main thing that irritated him the most though was the fact that he was keeping them waiting while he fought against himself mentally. And he hated to keep others waiting!

"Okay that's it! I want to get out of here and if you won't move I'll make you!" Sakura yelled at him. She leaped gracefully off the bird and landed in front of Sasori who tried to back up, but the wall behind him prevented him from doing so. In one quick move he was in her chakra enhanced arms again, and soon after he was on the clay monstrosity.

"Alrighty then," Deidara said, snickering under his breath as he gave the command for the bird to take off. It stood up and spread its wings wide before soaring up into the skies high above the base. Deidara smiled excitedly as he commanded his creation to level out. It responded almost instantly which gave him the chance to turn around and he nearly died laughing at the sight.

Sakura was staring at the ground below with wide panic filled eyes. Her hands were fisted into the back of the bird and she had to keep reminding herself to keep a steady flow of chakra attached to the bird in order to stay on.

Sasori however was sitting beside Sakura and with one hand grabbing the clay beneath him while his other held onto Sakura tightly. Both of them didn't seem to notice until Sasori heard Deidara's loud laughter. He looked down at where Deidara's gaze was focusing on and instantly he detached himself from Sakura. _Note to self, kill the idiot later..._

Feeling the harsh grip on her arm disappear Sakura sighed in relief, but it didn't stop the butterflies that were fluttering around inside her stomach. _It's a good thing I didn't eat much today_, she thought somewhat happily.

Her emerald eyes scanned the ground below trying to search for clues that would tell her where she was and almost cried out in frustration seconds later. They must have been asleep for days because now they were currently flying over the Earth Country!

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are greatly appreciated!**

**Oh and thank you for so many reviews last chapter. I was so happy that you guys liked the last chapter so much.**


	6. The Great Escape

**A/N: I'm so sorry about the super late update! I recently got surgery, then writer's block, then band camp, then more writer's block, and thankfully now I'm somewhat free to update again. Yea! Once again really sorry about it being so late. Don't worry I'll finish this story... eventually. But anyways this chapter sort of sets up the main plot for the story, but I'm not sure if I like this chapter or not yet. Oh yeah and thanks for so many reviews. I wasn't really sure about the last chapter, but I'm glad that you all liked it so much!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the song The Great Escape by Boys Like Girls**

* * *

**Chapter 6: The Great Escape**

* * *

To say the silence between them was awkward, would be putting it mildly. In fact, none of them had said a word since they had escaped.

Still trembling slightly from being over hundred feet in the air, Sakura breathed in deeply, and tried to relax her nerve wrecked body. It felt like every part of her body ached for one reason or another. How long had they been unconscious? Hours? No, it couldn't have been hours. It would have least taken them three to four days to travel that far.

Sakura's stomach growled at the thought, and the cuts on her arms still stung from her last battle. And she was pretty sure that she looked like crap at the moment which only made her even more depressed about this situation. Fisting her hands into the soft, sturdy clay beneath her, she looked at her two "companions."

Sasori had on his calm facade again, but it didn't stop him from shifting nervously when the bird shook every once in a while. Deidara, however, looked uncomfortable and his jaw was clenched so tightly that her own jaw hurt just watching him.

Well at least that meant Sasori and her agreed on something.

Deidara flying an explosive, clay bird, over one hundred feet in the air, with them on it, was a bad idea. Not to mention the fact that the blond looked like he was going to pass out any second now.

It was times like these that Sakura wished that she was back at home, with some hot chocolate, and a nice book to read, on her comfy sofa. But no, she was stuck with two Akatsuki members in the middle of Earth country, and they were all exhausted. Why couldn't life be nice for a change?

"How about we land over there, yeah?" Deidara called back to them. One hand was over his stomach where he'd gotten stabbed recently. Blood was already starting to become visible on his fingers.

Glancing over at Sasori, she could tell that he'd noticed too. "Alright," he said, hoping that Deidara's wound wasn't as bad as it looked.

Commanding the clay bird to descend, they landed near a small stream that had a few trees and bushes for cover. From what they could tell, there was no one around for miles, and they hoped that it would stay that way.

As soon as the clay bird landed, both Sasori and Sakura scrambled off its back and sighed happily as their feet touched the hard, solid ground. Sakura groaned and stretched her sore muscles before settling on the ground near the stream. Taking off her shoes she put her feet in the surprisingly cool water, and sighed again in relief. No matter what, she would not be leaving this spot for a while.

She looked over her shoulder, and saw that Sasori was resting up against a tree. Both legs were pulled up to his chest, and his head leaning back against the tree. He watched lazily as Deidara slid off his creation and limped over to a spot nearby Sasori, obviously not trusting Sakura for one second.

Sakura smirked inwardly at this for some reason, but she soon found herself frowning in concern as the blond winced when another wave of pain passed through his body. She was surprised at herself for wanting to heal him. Wasn't this the same guy who kidnapped Gaara and used his body to sit on back at the Akatsuki base? Plus he had attempted to capture Naruto as well. She instantly hated herself for feeling bad about his injuries. The jerk deserved it after all he had done to her friends.

She turned around at that thought and watched her toes instead wiggle around in the sand at the bottom of the stream. Instinct told her that she shouldn't be acting this relaxed around two of the world's most dangerous criminals, but they probably couldn't put up much of a fight anyways. Sasori had used up almost all his chakra in the last fight and Deidara could barely even move. Besides if it came down to a fight, she was confident that she could at least hold her own, and easily escape.

Pulling her feet out of the water, she let them dry by themselves on the side of the stream as she thought about her team. Hopefully, they had not run into any trouble, and were back at home safe and sound. It put her troubled mind at ease as she told herself that they were all safe, and with any luck she could deliver the information needed to bring Sasuke back. Naruto will definitely be happy about that.

A peaceful expression replaced her tired one for less than a second before she decided to break the uneasy silence that had fallen over them. "So what was it you wanted from me?" she asked in a commanding yet cautious tone. She could feel Sasori's sharp eyes watching her every movement.

The first thing he said confused and shocked her at the same time.

"Do you want to put an end to Orochimaru?" he asked in a deadly calm voice. She could see his features darken as he spoke his name.

She nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Well first off I want you to know that if you tell your Hokage what I'm about to tell you. I will make sure to end your life….. as slowly and painfully as I can."

Sakura felt her body stiffen as fear and excitement shot through her battered body. _What kind of information was he planning on telling me? Would it be about the Akatsuki? Or maybe it would be personal information?_

Biting her bottom lip, she wondered if it was really worth it, but before she could convince herself not to. She quietly told him. "I promise I won't tell my Hokage any information that you are about to tell me."

Sasori nodded in approval before he continued. "There is a reason to why I am healing so fast like you said before. I myself am a medic ninja, but from what I have seen, you are far more advanced at healing than me. In fact, you're probably better than the old hag as well."

Sakura growled a bit at what he'd just called lady Chiyo, but she didn't comment on it.

"So this is where you come in." He paused to glance over at Deidara who had decided to take a nap when Sasori began talking. "I do not have enough chakra, and I normally don't use my medical skills on healing injures anyways. I won't be able to heal Deidara on my own, and I'll need your help to save him."

Emerald eyes hardened at the thought of healing the guy who'd hurt her friend. She refused to heal the jerk.

"And also if you heal Deidara, I'll allow you to come with us when we set out to kill Orochimaru." Sakura's eyes widened in disbelief, he was going to let her come with him? "As you probably already know, we had ten days to get to the Tenchi bridge in Grass. Too many days have passed for you to return to your village, form a squad, and make it there on time." He smirked as she began to understand what he explaining to her.

"I know that Orochimaru is the stronger of the two of us, on my best day. Now that I'm human again, I know for a fact that I will not be able to overpower him on my own. Plus the traitor will most likely have followers to back him up. If you help me kill him, I will help you with whatever you're planning on doing with Sasuke Uchiha." He finished, noticing how the pink haired kunoichi stilled at his words.

The sun was setting and the temperature was beginning to cool. Sakura thought about what he'd told her over and over in her head. It was almost too good to be true. However a chance like this might never show up again. Which meant this could be the last time to get Sasuke back before it was too late. In addition to that, she also would have two of the world's most powerful ninja alongside her. _Why not?_

Just noticing the darkening sky, Sakura blinked her eyes a few times to adjust to the change before meeting Sasori's gaze. Little did she know the next few words she said would change her life forever.

"Alright… I'll come along with you, Sasori."

* * *

"Stay away from me, yeah!"

Sakura sighed. "I'm trying to help you-"

"I don't need your help, yeah! So stay away from me!"

Resisting the urge to strangle the stubborn blond, Sakura took off after him yet again.

"Look I'm trying to heal you, idiot."

"I don't care, yeah!" The blond yelled, moving out of her way just in time.

Sasori watched the two argue from a distance. An bored expression on his face as Sakura failed to catch Deidara yet again.

Stopping for a bit to catch her breath, Sakura turned to Sasori and asked. "Will you help me out already?"

"You're tired already?"

Sakura growled. "I can't take this anymore! He's not listening to me!"

Deidara who was eyeing her wearily from a distance away, started to sneak away from them only to have Sakura chase after him again. Her lungs felt like they were on fire, and she had no idea how Deidara could keep this up in his condition.

There were barely any trees in Earth country, and the air in this place was hot and sticky during the day. At night, however, it was so cold that Sakura wished she had a blanket, or at least a fire going. All this running around was just making her even more tired. And it annoyed her that it wasn't even helping that much in keeping her shivering body warm.

Taking a quick turn to the left when Deidara changed directions on her, she almost got him when a pile of slippery soil beneath her made Sakura lose her balance and fall face first into it. The slim coated the front part of her now, and all the frustration she was feeling earlier, was replaced with anger towards the blond that caused all this to begin with.

"That's it, I'm going to kill you!" she screamed, jumping to her feet and taking after him again.

Deidara who'd been chuckling over the fall she'd just had quickly recovered and began to move away from the angry kunoichi, not wanting to be anywhere near her at the moment. To him she looked just as frightening as his partner when he was in a bad mood.

Smash!

Blue eyes widened in disbelief as the ground behind him became a giant crater as Sakura punched the spot where he'd been moments ago. Never mind, this girl right now was a lot more frightening than when Sasori was in a bad mood. At least that seemed to inspire his aching legs to move faster. He jumped across the stream near their camp and tried to shake her off his trail, but nothing worked, and what was worse was that she seemed to be gaining on him.

Oh crap...

He kept running with chakra enhanced legs, hoping that she would just give up when the strangest thing happened. It was like he was being held in place in mid air. He tried to escape only to have no results. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sasori with one arm held up and light blue chakra strings starting at the tips of his fingers. They ended on different parts of the blond's body, securing him in place.

"Sasori, what are you doing, yeah!"

"I'm trying to help you brat, and I don't like to be kept waiting. We won't be able to get far if your wounds don't get healed. So stop being so stubborn and allow the brat to help you."

Sasori mentally sighed; he still needed to come up with a different nickname for one of them. _Maybe he could call Deidara idiot instead of brat… or moron?_

Deidara cursed and struggled to get free just as Sakura approached her hands at her sides in fists. She would have been absolutely terrifying if not for the fact that she was covered in fresh clay.

"Are you done running now?" she asked, her voice was trembling in anger and embarrassment, she would definitely be taking a bath downstream later tonight.

Rolling his eyes Deidara answered with. "Well obviously, yeah."

Sakura sighed, and asked Sasori to put Deidara on the ground so he would be easier to heal. Deidara squirmed not liking his new position at all and glared at both Sasori and Sakura as Sasori pinned his right arm above his head and Sakura sat down at his side. Apparently the blond didn't have his left arm at the moment and claimed that it was in the inside pocket of his Akatsuki cloak. Sure enough it was there, and Sakura nearly gagged at how torn up it was. Not to mention how badly it smelled.

"Okay brat, tell me what happened after you left me at the Akatsuki base," Sasori commanded with a hint of annoyance in his voice as he remembered Deidara's idiotic actions a few days ago. Meanwhile, Sakura began taking off his Akatsuki cloak and shirt so she could heal him properly.

Deidara winced as Sakura fingers grazed over his stab wound before he began. "Well I was chased by the Jinchuuriki and the copy ninja, Kakashi Hatake, and I kept trying to separate them, but somehow the copy ninja avoided everything I threw at him, and before I realized it he somehow managed to tear my other arm off and the Jinchuuriki punched me off my clay bird. Then I was attacked by another squad of ninja, and one of them was a byakugan user and he gave me a really nasty bruise, yeah. Then somehow I managed to escape by faking my own death… and that's pretty much it, yeah."

Sasori sighed, why did his idiot partner have to run off by himself? If they had fought together they probably would have won.

"Alright what happened after that, brat?"

"I guess after that I met up with Zetsu and Tobi." Deidara frowned as he mentioned Tobi. "That stupid Tobi found my arm and was trying to steal my ring. I can't believe Leader wants me to be partnered with him. Lucky for me though you're still alive so that won't have to happen."

Sasori didn't respond, as he helped Sakura remove Deidara's torn shirt and almost winced in sympathy.

Deidara had a huge bruise covering most of his stomach, plus the stab wound that was bleeding again, and his left arm was gone, leaving a really disturbing sight. Even Sakura cringed at his wounds. She hadn't seen anyone this badly injured in a long time.

Sakura quickly went to work on his injuries while Sasori held him down. Deidara would jerk and tense up every once in a while, and once he felt like he was going to scream from the amount of pain he was in. The only reason he'd survived this long was from the amount of chakra he was using to stop his body from bleeding to death.

The three ninja stayed this way for hours, as the coldness of the night air nipped at them. Sakura's eyes squinted and relied on the moonlight to show her the spots that were injured the most, saving his arm for later. Her chakra was steadily decreasing and she would have to take a break very soon. She looked at how much she'd accomplished and couldn't help but feel a little satisfied at the sight of Deidara's stomach looking a lot better than it had been before. It was still bruised badly, but she'd made sure that it would be impossible for him to bleed to death, at least from that area. She still needed to reattach his arm.

This was going to be a long night...

Her emerald eyes drifted over to Sasori who had a spaced out look on his face, and then to Deidara whose face betrayed how much pain he was in. All of them were equally exhausted and needed to sleep. It was late and it only seemed to keep getting colder as the night went on.

"Okay that's it," Sakura said, getting up to stretch. Sasori eyed her curiously as she walked over to the stream to wash off her bloody hands. Normally she would have washed her hands to start out with, but it wouldn't do Deidara any harm. She didn't need to touch his wounds directly, so he wouldn't get an infection from it. Besides the water was muddy anyway and wouldn't have cleaned her hands completely anyways. Still what worried her the most was that she wouldn't have enough chakra to heal the rest of his serious wounds, mainly his arm.

"I need to get some medical supplies. He only has a day or two until he dies from blood lose. Do you know if there is a village close by?" She asked Sasori who shrugged.

"I don't know. I've barely ever been to Earth country in my entire life."

"There's one about two days away, yeah." Deidara said quietly. All his energy seemed to be gone after such a long healing session.

Sakura blinked in surprise that he was talking to her nicely for a change. All the other times beforehand, he'd only insulted her and yelled at her. He had to be really tired if he was talking to her like this, but then what he told her sunk in and she realized that it would be almost impossible to save him now. _Two days? He would be lucky to make it to the end of tomorrow!_

"Get me some clay," Deidara said as he thought of a way out of this. Sakura looked suspicious, but gave in realizing if she let him die now, then there would be no chance in getting Sasuke back. _Why did Sasuke have to leave? Then I wouldn't have to be in this mess._

Sakura scanned the squishy ground beneath her and couldn't find any trace of clay anywhere. She searched and searched feeling miserable, dirty, and more tired than she had in a long time. Finally she gave up and yelled. "What does it look like!"

"Sasori can you help her?" Deidara asked his partner who had the same zoned outlook on his face like before. Sasori blinked a few times before stretching like Sakura had and helped her find some clay that she was currently standing on.

Sakura felt her face turning red like tomato as Sasori raised an eyebrow at her obliviousness. Man this was not the best time to feel embarrassed. Even though she did kind of walk on top of the thing she was looking for, for the last a few minutes.

Handing over the brown clay to Deidara, he instantly began chewing on it with the mouth on his hand. Mixing it with his chakra and turning it into a tan color instead of the muddy brown it had been just moments before. He was using more clay than he usually did for one reason. His creation was going to be a lot bigger than a simple bird.

Ten minutes later, after his tongue had shaped the lump of clay to the best of its ability, Deidara finished his creation in the palm of his hand before throwing it as hard as he could to the right. Away from Sasori and Sakura who sat on the left side of him. Then he formed a hand sign and shouted the command that would make it expand in size. A loud popping noise sounded and smoke filled the area, making it impossible to see what it was at first.

"This one's my favorite, yeah. And it should last us for a long time, so I won't have to use up any of my chakra for a while."

Sasori's eyes lit up in recognition while Sakura's eyes widened in disbelief as the smoke cleared and a huge clay dragon stood up to its full height which was almost as tall as the buildings in the Leaf village.

"This should get you to the village in about a half a day, but try not to get it angry. My creation has a mind of its own, so its not afraid to bite, yeah." Deidara warned her as the dragon crouched down to her level and let out a low rumbling noise.

"Hello there... huge dragon thing," Sakura squeaked, feeling very much awake now.

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are appreciated!**

**Special thanks to ShadowCatMage for pointing out it was rogue instead of rouge. :)**

**And thanks to everyone else who's reviewed, favorited, or put my story on their alerts.**


	7. Survive

**A/N: I updated! Yea! I tried to finish this chapter as quickly as possible. I'm really happy because in few weeks I'll have a lot of free time again, which means I can update quicker. I can't wait! Anyways I hope you enjoy the chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the song Survive by Rise Against.**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Survive**

* * *

After taking a muddy bath downstream, so the guys wouldn't see her. Sakura waddled back while attempting to stop her frigid body from shivering. If she was going into town, she couldn't be completely covered with clay, dirt, blood, and other crap. It would only attract unwanted attention, and she had to make sure she went in and out of town as quickly as possible.

Forcing herself to keep going, she finally made it back and was greeted with Sasori's annoyed glare.

"What?" she asked the red head as she drew near.

"You take way too long getting ready," he stated. From the looks of it, he'd been pacing back and forth while she'd been away cleaning up.

Sakura nearly snapped at him in frustration. She'd been at the most ten minutes. Plus it had been nearly impossible to clean her clothes and herself. Speaking of which, her clothes were ripped in several places and was plastered to her petite form. The water had been unbearably cold, and now she was tired and her whole body was tense from the constant shivering.

"We won't be coming with you, since it would be too much of a hassle to bring Deidara, so you'll have to ride on the C2 dragon alone. Now first y-"

"Wait what?"

Was Sasori actually going to let her go alone? Sakura realized that if she was then he would be putting a lot of trust in her. There had to be some sort of catch.

Sasori sighed and ran a hand through his messed up hair. "Will you let me finish."

Sakura nodded, looking past the puppeteer to stare at the dragon for a split second. Then it hit her. _That was it!_ If it looked like she wasn't going to make it in time, regardless whether she simply couldn't make it back or just ran off, Deidara would only have to make a hand sign and she would be blown into pieces. She really hoped that wouldn't happen.

Sasori continued after he made sure he had her attention. "You don't have to worry about it flying, since this one has been created to be faster on land, or so Deidara told me before he fell asleep." He paused to glance over at the blond who was snoring softly a short distance away. "Anyways, this one is half the size of his normal C2 dragons, but you will still have to stay hidden for the most part. Don't bring it into town unless it's an emergency. Understood?"

"Yeah," she answered while staring at the clay dragon uneasily. It stared back at her with empty black eyes. She wondered if it even had a mind of its own. It didn't seem like Deidara had to control its movements or anything like that. How strange…

"Alright then, hurry brat," Sasori said while motioning towards the dragon.

Sakura nodded, before returning her focus to the dragon in front of her. Walking tentatively forward she was almost within touching distance when it moved slightly causing her to flinch visibly. Why did it have to be so big and have claws and fangs? Not to mention the fact that it was actually a giant clay bomb.

Taking a breath to calm herself, she quickly leaped up nimbly onto the dragon's shoulder and climb up its neck so that she sat on top of its head, which was seven times bigger than her. The dragon didn't move the whole time as if sensing her unease.

The clay beneath her felt strange. It was the a little bit squishy and would probably be very comfortable if she wanted to take a nap on it. She reached out hesitantly to touch the soft material and pet the creature on the head a few times. A low rumbling noise resonated around her and it took Sakura a few seconds to realize it was purring. She smiled and rubbed it behind its ears and laughed quietly as the purring grew louder. Maybe she could get along with this thing after all.

"Brat, will you leave already?" Sasori snapped when she continued to be affectionate towards the clay beast.

She jumped at the sound of his voice. "Y-yeah I was just about to… um…. to…. Hey Sasori?"

"Yes?" he asked becoming impatient.

"How do you get it to go?"

"What?"

"Like how do you get it to start moving?"

Sasori lifted his gaze from the ground to stare up at her. He looked so tired that she almost cringed in sympathy. "I don't know, figure it out yourself."

Sakura sighed. "So he didn't tell you, that's just great."

She patted the clay dragon's head to get its attention before she extended her arm, pointing straight ahead. It grumbled and shifted a little bit in response, but otherwise it did nothing.

"You've got to be kidding me," Sakura mumbled. _Why did this have to happen to me?_ All she wanted to do was go back home. She sort of wished she could have returned to the others, so that none of this stuff would have happened. But still...

Then it occurred to her. _How did Deidara control his creations? He obviously didn't point or shout commands. Maybe it had to do with chakra?_ It was worth a shot since she didn't have any other ideas at the moment.

Sakura closed her eyes and gathered her remaining chakra and directed it to the lower half of her body and let some leak into the dragon beneath her. It let out a tiny grumble and its ears shifted back as if waiting for a command. "Alright," Sakura said quietly to the dragon, "forward." As she said forward, she directed her chakra flow towards the front part of her body, and she could the dragon instantly respond to the change. It began moving forward almost hesitantly as if it was silently asking her if it was doing the right thing. Sakura smiled and patted its giant head. "Good boy," she whispered. It didn't require practically any chakra at all to control its movements, only the bare minimum was required. This was turning out to be much easier than she thought it would be.

Sakura cranked her head around to see Sasori watching her with an interested look in his eyes. "I'll be back as soon as I can!" She called out to him. He simply nodded before returning his attention to his surroundings.

Feeling a little bit bad about leaving them both by themselves, Sakura returned her attention to the dragon, and flared her chakra slightly, hoping it would move faster. It understood what she wanted, and began speeding across the dry landscape, faster than she thought possible. It had to have been going at least fifty miles an hour, and Sakura held on tight as its speed only increased as the seconds passed by. The cold wind nipped at Sakura soaked form, making her feel even more miserable than she had been a few minutes ago.

_I hope they'll be safe until I get back_, she thought worriedly as the faintest rays of sunlight appeared over the horizon.

* * *

The morning seemed to stretch on and on while the sun climbed higher into the sky. The dragon never once slowed which was a good thing, considering their situation. At this rate they'd be at the village in no time. That was one nice thing about having one of Deidara's clay dragons. They never got tired since they didn't have to breathe.

Sakura tried to keep her tired eyelids open, but after deciding that she wouldn't be able to much longer, she moved down the dragon's neck until she reached the spot in between its shoulder blades and laid down on her side. So much had happened recently that it was becoming hard for her to even keep up with it.

First she had only wanted to get information on Orochimaru from Sasori, so she could help Naruto save Sasuke, then after the battle Sasori had told her to go to the Tenchi bridge in Grass before dying, but he didn't end up staying dead since lady Chiyo had brought him back. Shortly after that she began taking care of him, hoping that he would give out more information, and be able to hand him over to the leaf village, but of course she had underestimated him, thinking he would be too weak to do anything and he'd been healing himself the whole time behind her back. Then after a few days spent with the red head, his blond partner comes out of nowhere and saves their lives, and now the three of them were going to work together to defeat Orochimaru and somehow she was going to figure out a way to bring Sasuke back home.

How in the world had she managed to make her life so complicated in only a week?

Feeling like her head was going to explode from all the stress, Sakura finally gave in to her body's demands, and quickly fell asleep to the gentle rocking motion of the dragon as it continued to race towards their destination.

* * *

A low grumble from beneath her caused the sleeping kunoichi to groan and slowly open her eyes. Doing a quick stretch, she let out a tired yawn before trying to make sense of where she was. Blinking a few times in disbelief at the sight before her, she let out a relieved sigh. They had just traveled a distance that would normally have taken two days on foot. She definitely loved this clay dragon.

"Okay boy, you stay here and I'll get us everything we need alright."

The dragon blinked before lying down as if it were silently telling her that he'd be right there waiting for her to return. She smiled and quickly slid off its back before heading into the town. The first things that entered her mind were: food, water, shower, supplies, and camping equipment. Then she tried to come up with what time of the day it was and estimated that it was a little past noon. This meant, she only had a few hours to get everything, before she had to get back.

But there was one little problem about that, she didn't have any money. The stupid rogues took everything from them that they thought was valuable. How was she going pay for anything? _Damn, why do I have to have such bad luck? Maybe fate is against me._

Sighing, she cursed the rogue ninjas again as she happened walk past a store full of fresh bakery food. Her stomach rumbled at the smell of freshly baked pastries. They looked so delicious too. Her mouth began to water at the sight. This was totally not fair, they even had her favorite desserts too.

Deciding not to linger any longer or else she probably wouldn't be able to control herself, Sakura soon began to realize that none of the places here were free, and even if she wanted a simple bath it'd cost more than the food would. And finally she came to the conclusion that she would have to do something that she had never done in her entire life.

…Beg...

* * *

"Please miss, could I have some medical supplies. My friend is dying, and he's going to bleed to death very soon if I don't get these things to him."

The old woman across the counter stared at Sakura with a look of distrust on her wrinkly face. "Why should I believe you girl? You're the fifth one this week with that lame excuse."

_Is everyone in the country this rude_, Sakura thought to herself as she continued to smile innocently at the old hag. She couldn't believe that she had resorted to begging, but it was the only other option besides stealing, and she would only do that if it became absolutely necessary. Plus she still had another hour or so before she had to start heading back anyways.

"Here's the proof if you want to see for yourself," Sakura said, as she pointed to the bloodied parts of her shirt that had stained when she had healed Deidara last night.

The woman eyes squinted at the sight of dried up blood before she nodded in approval and gave Sakura a basic kit of medical supplies. "You'll have to pay if you want more." She said in a cold tone as Sakura bowed politely and scampered away in case the old lady decided to change her mind.

So far she'd managed to get a basic medical supply kit, a quick bath at a kind family's home, a little bit of food, and an old torn up blanket. Which she thought was pretty good considering she had no money now whatsoever.

The air in the town was hot and humid again and the sand covered streets seemed to stretch on forever. Sakura yawned and began moving in the direction of the exit of the town when something caught her eye.

Two men were watching her with emotionless dark eyes across the street. The lower parts of their faces were covered by masks making it impossible to recognize them personally, but Sakura instantly thought of the rogues that had recently kidnapped her and the two Akatsuki members. Apparently they didn't like it when their prey escaped by their pissed off appearance. Too bad she was short on time and didn't have time to deal with them.

Pretending that she hadn't noticed them, she turned away so that she was facing down the street while watching them like a hawk in her peripheral vision. A part of her hoped that it was just her being paranoid, but when they began walking after her with only thirty feet of distance between them. Sakura felt adrenaline rush through her, and immediately her instincts began to kick in. Taking off the backpack that the kind, generous family had given her before she left, she unzipped it and placed the medical kit inside along with everything else before zipping it back up and swinging it back onto her back.

The only reason they hadn't attacked her yet was because there were too many civilians. Currently they were herding her towards the exit which meant she only had a minute before she would become an easy target. Once she was out in the middle of nowhere where the dragon was at. She had to do something and fast.

Surprisingly she thought to herself. _What would Sasori do?_

She chuckled at the first thing that came to mind. He would probably be too impatient to wait until they reached the exit and would find a way to kill them before anyone else noticed.

Sakura actually found herself wishing that the puppeteer was with her as she weaved around another person in the crowd. He was so smart. Smarter than Shikamaru even, and could think of a way out of this mess without even breaking a sweat.

After ten precious seconds slipped by, an idea came to mind. As she maneuvered around another person in the crowd which blocked her from sight of her pursuers, she made a few quick hand signs for a shadow clone and did a transformation jutsu on herself, so that she had brown hair and different colored clothes. Sakura and her clone remained together for a little bit longer until Sakura hurried on ahead without looking too suspicious while her clone faked trying to look for a way to escape from the pursuing ninjas that were now only twenty feet behind the clone.

Sakura would have at best another twenty seconds before they realized it was a trap. She had to conserve the chakra she'd regained during her morning nap or else she would never be able to heal the rest of Deidara's wounds. She had to avoid fighting a major battle at any costs or else Deidara would most likely die along with her and Naruto's hopes of getting Sasuke back.

She was running out of time.

* * *

**(Flashback)**

Somewhere deep down he believed that they would come back. They wouldn't just leave him. They were simply busy on missions. They would be home soon. He was sure of it.

Still, it didn't help ease the pain of the terrible loneliness that was beginning to consume him.

It had been a month and two days now since his mother and father had left. They should have been back, but every time he asked if they were going to come home, granny Chiyo would tell him that they'd been sent out again on another mission. He would reply with a simple 'okay' before returning to his room to stare at the pictures of them just above his bed.

He missed them so much.

Days came and went until one fateful night, a tiny wooden puppet walked into his room which made him stare at it in wonder and fascination. It was the first exciting thing that had happened to him in a long time.

Granny Chiyo had walked in moments later and asked him if he wanted to make a puppet of his own as she thickened the chakra strings so he could see them. The light blue chakra strings came from her fingertips and connected to different parts of the small puppet. He gasped in shock not knowing that something like that was even possible. Why couldn't she have shown him this before? It was so cool. Immediately he knew that he wanted to learn how to do this amazing jutsu.

He quickly agreed and after she had given him instructions on how to make one for himself. Sasori began working for the rest of the night. Not knowing that the two beautiful masterpieces would eventually cause his death and begin the start of his obsession with eternity.

* * *

Heart pounding in her chest as she exited the town with the backpack of supplies being carried in her arms in front of her so she wouldn't be recognized, Sakura speed walked until she was far away from the two rogue ninjas before she slowed her pace and searched for the giant clay dragon. She let her disguise drop not wanting to use up any more chakra than necessary. By now the two rogues would know by now that it had been a clone that they had been chasing after.

Sakura slung the backpack onto her back once more and walked a little bit longer when a familiar white dragon came into view. "Hey boy!" she called out causing its ears to flicker in her direction. It looked like it had been taking a nap when she arrived and as she approached it stretched like a cat before lowering its head in front of her like it was waiting for her to do something. Sakura hesitated before gently petting it on its head and feeding it a tiny ounce of her chakra. It purred in approval and crouched down beside her as she moved forward to get on.

Sitting back on top of its giant head, she couldn't help but feel nervous about the rogues that weren't that far away. They would have to leave right away.

Letting the dragon know where she wanted to go, it whirled around and smoothly began racing back towards the Akatsuki members. Sakura let out the breath she'd been holding moments later once she felt she was safe again and leaned down to pet the dragon's head.

"I think I should give you a name," she said thoughtfully as she tried to come up with one. She wanted to call it something rememberable when it finally came to her. It was absolutely perfect.

"I got it," she began, and the dragon's ears swiveled backwards to listen to her in response, "I'm going to name you Ryu."

Ryu meant dragon, so this way it wouldn't be hard for her to forget. She didn't know if the dragon could understand her, but it purred anyways at the affectionate tone of her voice. The sensation of Ryu purring caused made her vibrate and she actually started laughing at the strangeness of the situation.

It was odd, but for some reason Sakura liked Ryu and in a way it was like having a giant pet. It acted like an obedient dog, and made noises similar to that of a cat. Hopefully Deidara wouldn't blow him up when she got back. The thought of that happening angered her, and Ryu sensing its new master's distress began to growl unhappily.

"It's alright Ryu, I won't let that jerk do that to you." she assured the dragon who stopped growling and focused on the rocky and sandy terrain in front of him.

They traveled peacefully for a few more minutes until Sakura felt like something was wrong. She couldn't place it, but there was definitely something bad that was about to happen. While she had been getting supplies in the village, there had been no time to find any ninja weapons like kunai. This was not good.

"Ryu hurry," she urged the clay dragon who dug its feet into the ground and set off at a faster pace in order to please its master. She wondered if she was just being paranoid, but she could have sworn she'd sensed the chakra of three to five ninjas nearby.

Ryu leaped over a boulder and Sakura easily hung on with the little amount of chakra she was still giving to the dragon as her emerald eyes darted around frantically for any signs of the enemy. Still nothing, but silence until a paper bomb was tossed in front of Ryu an exploded less than a second later. Sakura let out a cry of surprise as she was ripped off the dragon's back and landed painfully on her side. Rocks were digging into her and a few places on the right side of her body were stinging from the cuts she'd just received. From the corner of her eye she could see Ryu rise to its feet, and it let out a roar as it spotted the two that had attacked them.

After a quick check to make sure nothing was broken, Sakura pushed herself up to stand next to Ryu in a defensive position, as she identified the two. They were of course the same rogues from the town that had been following her. She had no clue as to how they could keep up with Ryu's speed, and it frightened her a bit that they'd found them so quickly.

This wasn't looking good. She shouldn't fight, but it was most likely going to become one unless a miracle happened.

"Tell us kunoichi," the taller one on her left said from a few meters away, "where is Deidara of the Akatsuki."

Keeping her temper under control, she responded back with. "I don't know." Actually she was surprised that they didn't want Sasori too unless they were baring a grudge against blond for some reason which didn't seem likely. Their leader had said before that he wanted Deidara so he could turn him in for money. They probably didn't recognize Sasori since he was always inside of that creepy puppet of his, Hiruko.

She could see the anger flash in the eyes of the rogue ninjas. They were probably expecting her to lie, but they must have been in a hurry to find Deidara. To them she must have looked like she was with him and Sasori since they were captured together. And they could never be so wrong. The only reason she was with them now was because of the temporary truce between them and her.

It was strange, as the realization dawned on her that she was actually a temporary teammate with two of the world's most powerful ninja. As she thought this she actually felt a bit proud and accomplished of herself for some reason. It was weird, but just thinking of that seemed to give her some newfound strength. It was as if she had to prove to herself that she was strong enough and defeat these ninja before her. The two ninja across from her reached for their weapons. It looked as if a fight couldn't be avoided now.

They lunged at her, and with a battle cry she leaped forward with a chakra enhanced fist.

* * *

Deidara's heavy breathing alerted the puppet master that he was in pain and was almost out of chakra. It wouldn't be much longer and then he would end up bleeding to death.

_Where is she?_ Sasori thought to himself impatiently as he crouched down beside his partner to see if he could help with anything until Sakura got back. After examining the stab wound he'd received by protecting him, he found out that it had thankfully not injured any vital organs. Of course if it had he wouldn't even be alive right now. Still the wound wasn't completely healed, and Sakura would have to be the one to reattach his arm. He could at least try to heal the rest of the stab wound while he waited for Sakura to get back.

Which reminded him once more on how much he couldn't stand waiting.

Getting right to work, while the blond fidgeted in his sleep in front of him, Sasori created chakra threads at the ends of his finger tips and weaved the thread like chakra through the wound as if he were giving the blond stitches. The wound slowly came together, and Deidara relaxed after a while as the pain got lessened, but it still didn't solve the problem of the blond using up his chakra to stop the arm wound from bleeding. If Sasori was correct, Deidara only had another hour or two until that happened.

_Hurry up brat! _

Sasori got back up and began pacing back and forth once more, unable to keep still with all the anxiety coursing through him. That was when a thundering roar came from nearby which sounded like Deidara's clay dragon. The only time it roared like that was when Deidara had been in trouble in the past.

The brat needed help and fast.

Glancing back at his partner, Sasori quickly made his decision.

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are appreciated and make me very happy :)**

**Oh and thanks once again to everyone that has reviewed, favorited, or added my story to their alerts. **


	8. Protecting Me

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A/N: This was such a hard chapter to write. I couldn't get the ending right, but now I think I'm satisfied with it. I hope you enjoy the next chapter to It Was You.

**Disclaimer: lol I spelled disclaimer wrong ten times in a row. I think I'm tired. Anyways I don't own Naruto or the song Protecting Me by Aly & A.J.**

* * *

**Chapter 8: Protecting Me**

* * *

Small craters littered the small battle field as the fight dragged on and on, neither side was willing to give up and admit defeat. Sakura's body trembled from the strain she was putting on it. She was tired, and had more cuts and bruises than she would normally would have by now. However, she wanted to save what was left of her chakra because if she used it all up, everything would be lost.

Sasuke

He seemed to be like an unreachable goal. _Would they ever find him?_ She laid awake on some lonely nights asking herself this before she drifted off to sleep. Naruto apparently believed they would get him back. She wished she had his confidence.

Her hands clenched into fists, and she forced herself to refocus on the fight. The ninja who was the weapon specialist of the two rogues closed in on her from her left. She dodged and made a quick side step to avoid his partner's follow up lightning jutsu attack.

There was no end to this. The pattern kept repeating. They would attack and she would dodge. If this continued she was going to be screwed big time.

Sakura looked over to the clay dragon nearby and called out. "Ryu!"

The dragon's ears perked up and it came trotting over to her side. She patted Ryu on the head as she whispered in its ear. "Can you help me kill them?" Ryu grumbled in reply and waited for her to make a move.

The rogues were watching them closely with cold onyx eyes from a distance away. They were wary of the clay dragon since they knew it was one of Deidara's creations. No doubt they'd heard that they exploded.

Sakura took this chance to catch her breath and do a quick self check up. She closed her eyes and took in a few deep shaky breaths to try calm her nerves that way she could concentrate easier. Nothing appeared to be broken, there were only a few cuts and bruises, and she still had twenty-five percent of her chakra left over. She hoped that would be enough to reattach Deidara's arm.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, Sakura's blazing emerald eyes snapped open and she stepped away from Ryu. She was going to make them regret ever meeting her when she was through with them. She cracked her knuckles and stretched her shoulders a bit before giving the signal to Ryu.

Time to finish this

With a battle cry, Sakura ran forward with Ryu right behind her. The rogues tensed and tried to guess what she was up to.

Sakura swerved out of the way at the last second as the weapon specialist sword nearly chopped her arm off. Yet it still managed to cut her as she passed by, but she didn't pay attention to that. She whirled around and came back for a second attack, punching the man right in his rib cage and felt the bones crack on contact. The rogue cried out in pain and was about to slice the pink haired kunoichi with his blade just as Ryu came up from behind and engulfed the top half of his body.

Ryu lifted him into the air and bit down, crushing all the bones and almost breaking the guy into two different pieces. The stench of blood hit Sakura hard and she gagged while she fought to control her now upset stomach. Her breathing slowed down dramatically and she cringed at the sound of the rogue's body hitting the ground.

Sure she was happy that Ryu saved her, but it bothered her as a medic to watch people die. She wanted to save lives not destroy or end them. The only time she had killed other ninja was during life threatening situations like this, and it used to take her days to rid herself of the terrified look on their faces as she killed them. She would rather just knock the person out or tie them to a tree than simply killing them. It just wasn't in her nature.

Sakura tried to move away from the other rogue, but winced as a ripple of pain went through her body. It didn't feel as if she was going to throw up, although she knew something was wrong.

The rogue who controlled numerous lightning jutsu glared at her from where he stood a little distance away. He backed up and began a series of hand signs that were so fast that they looked like a blur to the disoriented Sakura. She tried to get herself under control, but nothing was working.

Fear and desperation were welling up inside of her and she didn't know what to do. It was as if she was having a panic attack and she couldn't calm down. Ryu came over to her and purred reassuringly in an attempt to comfort her; he nuzzled into her side gently so he wouldn't knock her over. She smiled and tried to tell Ryu that she was okay, but her words refused to come out of her mouth.

Something had been done to her. _But what exactly? And when?_

"Too bad you killed my partner," the rogue said without any remorse in his voice. Sakura directed her gaze back towards the rogue and stared at him with pain filled eyes. "Renji always coated his sword with poison before hunting down his prey. It makes catching them so much easier when their bodies go numb."

Sakura shivered and let out a startled gasp as she sunk to her knees. How could she have been poisoned and not know about it? Usually she sense these sort of things before the effects took place.

Her chakra, she hadn't been using it that was why.

What was she going to do?

The rogue chuckled darkly as storm clouds gathered overhead. "I hope you still have some fight left in you kunoichi. I want to make you suffer greatly before I'm done with you." The ninja held out his hand and Sakura could only watch helplessly as an orb of light formed in his palm. "You might want to start running now, kunoichi."

Sakura tried to crawl away, but she couldn't move. So she laid uncomfortably on the hard, rocky ground instead. She faintly hoped that the poison wasn't lethal and that help would come, but as the light from his jutsu grew brighter in the darkening sky, her brief moment of hope began to fade as quickly as it had come.

Ryu growled warningly at the rogue and stood protectively over Sakura's fallen form. His ears laid back flat against his giant head, and he bared his bloodied fangs at the ninja across from him.

"Oh so you want a taste of my newest jutsu?" the rogue asked the clay dragon. He lifted his arm and released the lightning jutsu, aiming for Sakura whose emerald eyes widened in fear. The power that came from it was enormous. If that made contact with her, she would definitely die.

There was a loud angry roar, and a loud bang of something making contact, and then everything went black.

Or to be more exact, white.

* * *

_Am I dead? What happened… it feels like I'm being crushed? Is this how you're supposed to feel when you're dying?_

Sakura groaned as her emerald eyes cracked open to see what happened. She figured out right away that she was pinned down, but by what exactly, she didn't know. She couldn't tell from the position she was in now. It might've been that the poison had spread through her entire body, making her unable to move, so she tested the theory and found that she could move her arms if they weren't being held down at the moment.

Everything was dark, like she was being covered by something, and she strained her eyes to make out anything familiar. Dust and dirt polluted the air, making it hard to breathe, but there was something else. Something very familiar… She sniffed the air, and smelled the distinct scent of clay.

Ryu

The dragon had to be close by. She craned her neck as far back as she could go and still saw nothing. Squirming in discomfort, she wondered if she could push her way out from under this thing with her legs. She tried to move them and groaned when she concluded that they were paralyzed. No wonder the weapon specialist liked this poison; his "prey" would be quite easy to catch if they couldn't run away.

She tried to push upwards, but nothing was working, and she soon became too tired to attempt to escape. A small nap was sounding better and better by the second, and then she heard it. There was the soft sound of footsteps drawing nearer to her hiding spot. Sakura's breathing slowed, and she listened intensely for any signs that the person was coming closer, however, as soon as it started it stopped. The suspense was killing her, and Sakura hardly dared to breathe at all.

Sakura waited for what felt like hours until an intense bolt of lightning destroyed her hiding spot, and right in front of her stood the rogue ninja whose eyes narrowed in disgust upon seeing her still alive. He marched across the short distance between them, and picked her up roughly by her neck. Sakura's eyes widened in shock, and a cry of pain escaped past her cracked lips. And the parts of her body that could still move squirmed and wiggled around in a pitiful attempt to break free.

The rogue only tightened his grip in response to her actions, and waited for her struggling to cease before he began talking. "I'll give you one last chance, kunoichi. Tell me where I can find Deidara of the Akatsuki." He purred in a threatening tone. This was definitely no ordinary ninja, Sakura concluded. At this close range, she could tell how much chakra the guy had, and to her disbelief, it was more than most jounin. _Who exactly were these guys?_

He forcefully shook her when he became too impatient, and Sakura cried out from the sudden motion. Tears trailed down her face, and it felt like her neck was going to break at any second. When she finally looked at the rogue her eyes glared daggers at him as she replied with. "I'll never… tell you… bastard." She smirked at the look of disbelief that flashed in his eyes.

In a sudden rush of anger, he threw her to the ground and smiled evilly at her from under his mask. "Fine then… I'll find him myself." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a kunai. "But first, I'm going to have some fun with you, kunoichi. I thought for some reason that you would be stronger than this. I witnessed you fight alongside that red haired ninja on the outskirts of Fire country, so I know for a fact you have been holding back this entire time. I'm curious as to why you were," he sighed, "but even if I asked you, you probably would never tell me. Would you, kunoichi?"

Sakura said nothing. Her eyes shown with fear as she watched the kunai get juggled from hand to hand as the rogue paced back and forth. When it looked like he was ready to finish her off he stopped moving and turned to face her. Then with one quick motion he flicked the kunai towards her heart. Only it never hit its target.

Sakura blinked in confusion as a figure blocked the kunai with a familiar sword. The first thing she noticed was his red hair, and she knew instantly who it was.

"Sasori," she said almost in disbelief. The red head chuckled darkly.

"I thought you could handle yourself, brat."

Yep, it was definitely him.

The rogue leapt backwards to gain some distance from the puppeteer and observed the newcomer with a look of sudden interest.

Sakura's eyes flickered back and forth nervously between Sasori and the rogue. She honestly had no clue as to who would win. Sure Sasori was much stronger than her, and was an Akatsuki member, but he had no puppets. How in the world was he going to beat this guy?

"Brat get out of here and leave him to me," Sasori ordered, never once letting his gaze drift from his opponent.

"I can't," she said when her legs wouldn't cooperate. She was getting more and more tired as the poison traveled through her body. Yet she found that she could still move the upper parts of her body, it was just that her legs absolutely refused to move.

"Are you injured?" He asked.

"I've been poisoned by the sword you're holding."

There was a pause as Sasori's grip on the sword tightened. His brown eyes were narrowed to slits as he glared at his opponent. Lightning crackled above, and as the sky brightened intensely for a brief moment. Sasori's once pure chocolate brown eyes now had specs of red in them. Making him appear to be demon like to the rogue, who was becoming more and more uncertain of the red head.

This pathetic piece of trash was causing him to make Deidara wait, and Sasori couldn't stand to keep others waiting. He would just have to make quick work of him.

Sasori ran forward with such grace and speed that Sakura found herself watching the puppeteer with unmasked fascination. Every motion was thought through, and every attack was deadly as he advanced on the rogue.

The rogue seemed to realize that he was outmatched as Sasori dodged each and every one of his lightning jutsu's flawlessly, and was still able to injure him less than a second later. He tried to run, but Sasori tossed the sword after him with a couple chakra strings attached to the blade. It stopped right in front of the man's neck, and stayed suspended there, ready to kill at any moment.

"You were a dead man before the fight had even begun," Sasori whispered with disdain. "Still I expected you to be stronger than that."

Sakura turned away as Sasori killed the rogue before returning to her side.

He crouched down next to her pathetic form and raised one eyebrow at her questioningly.

Sakura glared. "What."

"How are you going to get back to camp?" He asked in an uncaring tone. Sakura found it strange that he'd changed from killer mode to his old bored, irritated self in a matter of seconds, but for some reason she didn't mind that. In fact, she was curious about how he was going to get her to Deidara with his weird touching issues.

With a small sigh, she muttered. "I don't know. I can't move my legs." She frowned as she suddenly remembered something. "Hey aren't you an expert on poisons?"

"…yes."

"Can you tell if this stuff is fatal?" She asked with hope in her emerald eyes.

Sasori shrugged and picked up the sword by his side, studying the liquid that dripped slowly off the tip of the blade. She watched as he sniffed it, observed its physical features and even rubbed a little bit of the liquid on the tips of his fingers.

After what seemed like forever, he said. "From what I can tell, it's not fatal. Though, you won't be able to move by yourself for few more hours."

"So... what now?"

Sasori didn't reply, however, both of them knew that if she couldn't move then he would have to personally take her to Deidara, which meant this time he would be the one carrying her. With a designated sigh, Sasori reached down and picked up Sakura bridle style, and Sakura yelped in surprise, not expecting this at all. She clung to Sasori who in return hissed in discomfort.

"Brat will you get your arms off of my neck," he asked, grimacing at the strangle hold she had on him. She quickly moved her arms away and crossed them over her chest instead while muttering a faint apology.

* * *

He traveled slower than what he would have liked, but soon they found the campsite and Deidara who was right where he had left him.

"You sure took your time, yeah." The blond complained as Sasori approached with Sakura in his arms. Deidara smirked and tried his best not to laugh at the uncomfortable look on his partner's face.

Sasori glared at the blond as he moved forward to set Sakura down in an upright position. She wobbled a lot and almost fell over several times if not for Sasori who steadied her at the last second. It was nearly impossible for her to stay sitting up.

"I can't work like this," she said with a bit of sadness and stress in her voice. Sasori frowned and attached chakra strings to her back just as she began to fall over again. She flinched as the foreign chakra touched her, but quickly relaxed under the soothing sensation it had on her.

Now she had to work on Deidara's injuries.

"Thanks," she said as she reached out for the mangled unattached arm. She fixed it to the best of her ability with her chakra and newly obtained medical supplies before she began the slow process of reattaching it back onto Deidara. Sasori remained quiet the whole time while Sakura concentrated on maintaining a steady flow of healing chakra.

By the time she'd run out of chakra, she'd successfully reattached most of his arm, but he would still need to have stitches for at least two weeks. Most of the area surrounding where his arm had been reattached had been numbed, so it didn't bother him as much, but it had to have still stung. It was a good thing that the medical supply kit she'd gotten earlier today had a needle and thread that way the blond didn't have to worry about bleeding to death anymore.

Then finally after three long hours of healing the blond, Deidara passed out, as did Sakura. However, she ended up falling back with her head on Sasori's lap which caused the red head to panic. And just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, she started to snuggle up against him in her sleep, and not to mention the death grip she had on his shirt which prevented him from removing her when he tried to pry her off. It took a while for him to calm down and by then the sky was clear of the storm clouds that the rogue ninja had summoned, so he could clearly see the sunset in the horizon.

It looked as if he had to wait for her to let go, so he could get away. He absolutely loathed waiting, but if he woke her up now she probably rip off his head. And he didn't doubt in the least bit that she could do that if she really wanted to.

Glancing down as Sakura continued to sleep peacefully on him, he sighed internally knowing that he wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight. Deidara needed rest so that he could heal, and the brat needed to regain some chakra for the journey ahead, which meant Sasori had to keep a watchful eye for any other ninja that might still be lurking around.

This was going to be one long night...

* * *

The next day Sakura woke up feeling like crap again. Her muscles ached horribly, and she only had at the most ten percent of her chakra. She got to her feet and stretched, looking for the two Akatsuki members, but the only one she could see was Sasori who was fast asleep a few feet away.

She was about to look away, but then she noticed the dark markings under his eyes. From what she could tell he hadn't slept at all last night and had just recently fallen asleep.

Sakura didn't want to wake him, so she sat back down and allowed the red head to rest while she wondered where Deidara was. He couldn't have gone too far by himself in his condition.

Sakura leaned down and rested her head on her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. From this position she could see all the bruises and cuts that coated her arms which only made her want to fix them, but she had to save her strength. She didn't want to be a burden to the two Akatsuki members. Unless Deidara had run off. _Where was the idiot anyway?_

There was nothing around for miles except for that one town. _Oh well_, she thought as she closed her eyes to enjoy the nice breeze that went by. She would be satisfied with staying here for a few more hours...

Her stomach growled.

_Well on second thought, I better get some food first_. She reached into her backpack and dug out two rice balls and munched on them until her once empty stomach had calmed down. Then she licked her fingers to get the few pieces of rice that were still on her hand, wanting to eat as much of it as possible.

"Wait we have food, un!"

Sakura whirled around to face the intruder, but she lost her balance and fell to the ground instead. When she looked up, she glared at the blond who was gazing at her backpack with a hungry look in his blue eyes.

Sakura grumbled and dusted herself off before saying. "Yes, I got some food yesterday."

"That's great, yeah." The blond said as he came closer. "I'm starving."

"Just don't eat it all," she warned as he grabbed five rice balls and starting devouring them like a starved animal. In less than a minute he'd eaten them all and was now giving the backpack a pitiful look like he wanted some more.

Sakura glared at the blond as if daring him to take another, but the blond wisely chose to back away instead. They sat in awkward silence with Sasori's slow rhythmic breathing as background noise. Deidara soon grew tired of the silence and began tapping his fingers on his knee which soon began to annoy Sakura.

"Would you cut that out." She groaned.

"I'm bored, yeah."

"Too bad."

"You're annoying, Pinky."

"What did you call me?"

Deidara smirked as he said. "Pinky, yeah"

Sakura punched the ground threateningly which made a dent in the once solid earth. "Don't call me that."

"I like it, yeah."

"Well I don't!"

Deidara chuckled. "I thought you wanted Sasori to get some sleep? You don't want to see him when he's sleep deprived, yeah."

Sakura glanced back worriedly at the red head and relaxed when she saw that he was still asleep. She felt like she needed to repay him for last night, so she was trying to let him sleep in for as long as he wanted to.

Deciding to ignore what the blond had said though, she turned back to Deidara and frowned when she remembered something from earlier. "So where did you go?"

"Just now, yeah."

"Yes."

Deidara held out his right hand and showed her a small lump of clay in the center of his palm. The tongue from his hand mouth was sculpting it carefully while his fingers did the rest of the work. "I didn't see my C2 dragon come back with you, so I went out to find it, but I could only find the remains of it scattered on the ground, yeah. So I tried to blow it up, but nothing happened-"

"What!" Sakura shrieked, which officially woke Sasori up, who groaned and opened his sleepy brown eyes to glare at his two companions. However, Sakura didn't notice and continued to yell at Deidara. "I can't believe you tried to destroy Ryu!"

"Who's Ryu?"

"The dragon you idiot!"

"Well I didn't know, yeah!" Deidara yelled back at her. "Besides it's my masterpiece and it's my choice when I feel like blowing it up, so it'll become my art."

"Your art is horrible then!"

Deidara's once angry face turned murderous. "Take that back, un!"

"No!"

The two continued to go at each other's throats until Sasori cut in. "Shut up!" The two froze from the icy tone of Sasori voice. Both of them turned simultaneously and saw the pissed off expression on his face. They flinched and tried to look anywhere, except the red head. "Now what in the hell is going on?"

"He was going to blow up Ryu!" Sakura complained. She glared at Deidara from out of the corner of her emerald eyes.

"My C2 dragon was lifeless; there wasn't any point in keeping it, yeah! Look I'm remaking it right now, so stop freaking out, Pinky."

"Stop calling me, Pinky!" Sakura snapped before what he said sunk in. "... Wait you're bringing Ryu back?"

"That's what I said, Pinky." Deidara said in an annoyed tone.

Sakura felt her anger spike when he called her Pinky again, but was pleased at the fact that he was bringing Ryu back to life. She was beginning to miss the clay dragon.

Sasori rolled his eyes at their childish behavior as he stood up and yawned. He walked over to the tree he had been leaning up against all yesterday and sat down with his back against it, trying to get some space from his companions. If they kept arguing at every chance they got, he was going to kill them for sure. He really didn't have the patience for this.

* * *

As Deidara finished with Ryu, Sakura waited patiently nearby. Her eyes rarely strayed from the clay in the Deidara's hands, and when he announced that he was done, she was staring wide eyed at his hand in anticipation.

Deidara set down his miniature creation on the ground and got up before he made a hand sign that made its size increase dramatically. There was a popping noise and a huge cloud of smoke filled the area. Sakura coughed and tried to see what was happening with her now watery eyes, but was unable to until the smoke was blown away by the wind. Then there stood Ryu who towered over them looking exactly the same as before.

Ryu let out a loud snorting noise and whipped his giant head back and forth like it was confused by its surroundings, but then it caught sight of Sakura and let out an excited chirping noise. Sakura squeaked embarrassingly as Ryu bent down and nuzzled into her stomach a little too hard which caused her to fall backward onto her butt. She laughed and rubbed the tip of Ryu's snout, and the clay dragon purred happily in return.

Angling back towards Deidara, Sakura smiled and told him. "Thank you!"

The blond frowned not understanding what was going on between his creation and the girl, but he responded unsurely with. "... You're welcome, yeah."

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are greatly appreciated. **

**I can't believe that I'm almost at 100 reviews. Thank you! And I hope you all have an awesome Halloween!**


	9. And the Hero Will Drown

**A/N: I could have updated this story four days ago, but the reason I wanted to today is because it's Sasori's birthday! So sorry about the delay, but on the bright side, I think I'm starting to update faster :) And omg I reached 100 reviews! I was freaking out for about two days when I saw that, but anyways onto the next chapter! Hope you enjoy it!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and never will or the song And the Hero Will Drown by Story of the Year.**

* * *

**Chapter 9: And the Hero Will Drown**

* * *

After removing all traces that they'd been at their campsite, Sakura, Sasori, and Deidara hopped on Ryu and began their journey towards Iwa, the hidden rock village.

Sakura sat on Ryu's head while Sasori relaxed in between the dragon's shoulder blades, and Deidara sat on Ryu's back, sulking since he was going back to his former village.

The sun was blistering hot which made them all sweaty and uncomfortable. And at one point Sakura felt like she was going to pass out. The hot weather here was different than fire country's nice constant warm temperature. She missed it so much right now. In some spots on her body she could swear she was getting blisters and she wanted so badly to find a nice place with air conditioning and a roof to hide in the shade.

That would be nice…

Taking out a warm bottle of water from her backpack she gulped down more than half before she paused to gasp for air. This was ridiculous, who in the world would want to live here? No wonder Deidara had left.

Sakura leaned back and saw Sasori looking absolutely miserable and realized that he'd had nothing to eat in days while she and Deidara had water and rice balls. He must have been starving. She dug into her bag and grabbed another water bottle and two more rice balls before she walked carefully down Ryu's neck to sit beside the red head.

His brown eyes flickered over to her as she sat down and held out the food to him.

"Here, I bet you're hungry," she said.

Sasori observed the food in her hands before he took it from her, making sure that his hands didn't touch hers. She watched as he hesitated slightly as he brought the food up to his mouth then he took a bite. His eyes glazed over with unmasked pleasure as he quickly devoured the rest of it and the remaining rice ball. Then afterward they both sat there in silence until Sasori mumbled a quiet "thanks" that was so soft that Sakura wasn't sure if she imagined it or not.

She nodded and stood slowly, wincing as her body screamed in pain. That battle had taken more out of her than what she'd originally thought. Her chakra needed to be replenished and the few wounds she'd gotten needed to be attended to, if not then she wouldn't last long in the battle against Orochimaru.

Moving back to her original spot on top of Ryu's head, she gave the clay dragon an affectionate rub behind his ears and smiled as he purred in response. Then using the minimal amount of chakra, she began to heal her most recent injuries.

* * *

Iwa came into sight after about three hours of traveling on Ryu. They stopped just before they reached the hidden village and discussed about what they would have to do once they got in there. Since apparently, they didn't have any money. The stupid rogues had taken everything!

This meant no hotels, food, or clean clothes.

Sasori sat down and thought quietly to himself while Sakura and Deidara started another argument for the seventh time this morning. He knew that Sakura would be against his methods of collecting money, but it seemed like this would be the only way. Plus this way he could separate the two brats before they ended up killing each other.

_… Stupid brats._

* * *

Before they set off towards the village, Ryu was reduced in size by Deidara, so that he was only at the most three inches long. This way Sakura could carry the dragon around with her and Ryu wouldn't be recognized as one of Deidara's creations.

They had only taken a few steps before Deidara said. "Make sure you don't squish my C2 dragon, Pinky, yeah."

Sakura twitched. "What did you call me."

"Pinky."

"I told you not to call me that, idiot!"

"I think it's a great nickname, yeah!"

Sasori who was trying to fight off a growing headache did his best not to snap at the two, when he noticed Deidara's appearance that would surely get him recognized. After telling the two brats to shut up, he had the blond take out his hair tie and flip his Akatsuki cloak inside out then Sakura created a genjutsu to alter his appearance enough to make him unrecognizable to people that were passing by. However, Deidara didn't like having his hair down and complained about it until Sasori's cold glare quickly made him silent. So the blond grumbled to himself as the trio approached the front gates of the hidden rock village.

Sakura's emerald eyes shimmered in awe at the buildings that were as tall as skyscrapers. She'd never seen anything like it. There were a lot of things that reminded her of the sand village yet it still had its own unique designs. The whole village was enormous that it would be so easy to get lost in this place.

Once inside the village, they split up into two groups, and went off in search of money. Sakura felt nervous about this, and deciding to skip out on the stealing part. Focusing on keeping up with Sasori would be hard enough. From the looks of it, the streets were jammed pack with people, and it looked like it would be almost impossible to even move. Even so, Sasori wasted no time at all as he weaved his way through the dense crowd of people not looking back to see if Sakura was there with him.

Sakura had to struggle to keep up with the impatient crimson hair ninja, and several times she lost sight of him. From all angles the petite kunoichi was getting pushed, shoved, and stepped on which only made her even more frustrated. There wasn't any room at all in this freaking place! She had no clue as to how Sasori could even move, when she could barely so much as breathe.

Then finally, she had had enough once a big, hulky guy nearly knocked her down as he hurried past her. She marched through the crowd after losing sight of Sasori once more, pushing and shoving civilians out of the way just in time to see the red head take a right turn down another busy street.

_Can't he slow down at least a little bit, this is ridiculous! I can't keep up at this pace! _Sakura fumed mentally.

There were many markets and food stands down this street, and when she got the chance to see through the cracks in the crowd. She could see something small, mysteriously float in mid air, and follow the puppet master as he continued on his way through the crowd. Sakura sighed and followed the floating fruit down the rest of the street and turned left down an alleyway as the yellow object suddenly floated in that direction.

There stood Sasori leaning against the wall of a building looking at her casually. He held out his hand for the lemon, and the fruit soared over to land in the center of his palm.

"I thought we were supposed to be finding money, not food?" Sakura questioned as she drew closer.

Sasori shrugged and began peeling off the skin of his stolen lemon. "I just wanted to have a short snack before I take anymore."

"Anymore?"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out all the money he'd stolen which could pay for dinner and two new pairs of clothes. "I can get double this in about two more minutes, but for now I want to have a quick snack."

Sakura nodded still in shock at how good he was at pick pocketing and waited calmly on the other side of the alley, mimicking Sasori's stance. She stared at the sour food in his hand until finally it clicked. He was going to eat a lemon like it was an apple. Did he forget how sour they could be? _Oh crap!_ "Sasori wait!"

He took a bite.

Sakura waited for his reaction, except he didn't do anything. Instead he raised an eyebrow at her and took another bite. He chewed and swallowed before asking her. "Is something wrong?"

Shaking her head back and forth, Sakura looked back out into the swarm of people. He was definitely one of the few people she knew that could eat a lemon like that and not make a funny face at the sour taste.

Sasori finished eating faster than what she'd thought possible, and tossed the remains on the floor. Then he set off to steal more money, with Sakura right on his heels, desperate not to lose sight of the red head.

* * *

They'd collected more than enough money and still had an hour left before they had to meet up with Deidara. So the two ninja decided that it would be a great time to shop for clothes.

Sasori gave her a handful of money that would be more than enough for everything. Then without saying anything to her, he walked off into the crowd. She wondered how he could stand it with all his strange touching issues, but when she caught a glimpse of him in the crowd she could see him careful maneuvering through everyone. Not once touching anybody.

Wondering if she could do that so entered the crowd and was instantly swept away. Once again she was pushed and pulled from all sides. She cursed and let out a growl of frustration. Then when an opportunity to escape came up, she leaped through a random opening and luckily landed in the entrance of a nearby store. These streets were starting to get on her nerves…

"Hello," the cashier greeted her in a friendly tone.

Sakura smiled and let out a small greeting as well before walking towards the huge selection of clothes in the back. She searched through them quickly and found a green shirt that she absolutely loved along with a matching pair of shorts. Then she went back to the cashier lady and paid for them before going to stand in the doorway. The dismay she felt must have been written all over her face because the cashier lady told her in an informative tone.

"It's usually busy on the weekends like this. If you stay to the far left or far right on the street it shouldn't be so bad. The streets are usually a lot emptier in the afternoon. That's when everyone around here goes to the bars and clubs to have fun."

Sakura frowned at that, and took when step out into the street only to freeze in her tracks at the sound of a familiar voice.

"Come on brat, I want to start looking for some hotels for tonight."

She jumped and whirled around to find Sasori who was waiting for her to go out the door. "When did y… How did y…. Never mind?" she sighed.

"Let's go," he urged impatiently. He walked out into the streets with Sakura trailing right behind him. But when Sakura looked back she almost laughed at the dreamy look on the cashier's face as she watched Sasori leave with lust filled eyes. Sakura glanced up to see if the red head had noticed and this time she couldn't hold back her laughter at the look of disgust that showed clearly all over his face.

If only she had a camera…

* * *

"I like this one, it even has a bar downstairs, and not to mention the rooms look safe."

Sasori didn't respond, instead he continued checking out the room that they were going to stay in for the night. Unless of course he decided not to stay here like the previously rejected hotels.

With one last glance at the partially opened windows he said. "Fine we'll stay here."

Smiling Sakura fell backwards onto one of the beds and rested peacefully there for a moment. It looked as if she were getting her wish after all. The air conditioning was like heaven and the bed was like a giant fluffy cloud. She cracked open one eye and saw Sasori watching her with some unknown emotion swirling in his chocolate eyes before he turned away and headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?" She asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

"We were supposed to meet up with Deidara about ten minutes ago. I don't want to keep him waiting for us any longer." He opened the door to their room. "Feel free to stay here while I go find him."

Sakura nodded and curled up into a ball on the nice comfy bed as Sasori left. Ryu climbed out of her pocket shortly after and laid down beside her neck, humming contently. She smiled again and quickly drifted off to sleep for a nice relaxing nap.

* * *

"I'm just saying that if I'd blown up the place I could've gotten this all for free, yeah."

"You're an idiot."

"This stuff was expensive though, un."

"I don't care it's your stolen money anyways. Besides we are not supposed to be drawing attention to ourselves while we're here."

"It was just one little store, yeah."

Sakura groaned, if only she could throw the annoying blond out the window. Then she could peacefully go back to sleep.

"So you finally killed her. Yes! Now I don't have to deal with her anymore, yeah."

Sakura's eyes shot open and she glared openly at the blond. He grinned at her angry expression until she couldn't take it anymore and leapt off her bed. She couldn't wait to punch that look right off his face. However, she never got to him.

Deidara and Sakura were being held in place as Sasori attached chakra strings to their backs. One look at Deidara told her that he was about to jump to safety while she was posed to strike him down. If only Sasori would let her.

"This is why I bought a separate room. There's a door connecting the rooms, but for now one of you will stay in there so I won't have to deal with your idiotic behavior." Sasori said pointing at the set of double doors leading to the extra bedroom.

Both Sakura and Deidara glanced at each other before making a mad dash to the door as Sasori released them. Deidara made it first and stuck three tongues out at her as he jumped inside and slammed the door shut in Sakura's face.

"You jerk!"

"I win, yeah!"

Sakura pulled her arm back like she was going to bust the door open, but at the last second she decided against it. Instead she trudged back to the bed she'd been sleeping on and plopped down at the edge of it.

It looked as if she would be staying in the same room with Sasori tonight.

* * *

They all relaxed in their rooms for the rest of the day, deciding to find food later tonight when there were less people out and about.

Sakura took advantage of their free time and snuck into their shared bathroom with her new clothes cradled in her arms. She quickly discarded her old clothes, throwing them into a corner before jumping into the hot steamy shower which felt wonderful to her aching muscles. There was also some free shampoo in the bathroom, so she used almost half the small bottle by the time she was done. She stayed in there for at least an hour. Feeling relieved since it was loosening up all her muscles and washing away most of her aches and pains. Then after combing through her hair with her fingers, she got out and changed into her new clothes already feeling much better than before.

On the way out, she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror, and was momentary stunned at how confident she looked. There was a look of pride and fierceness in her emerald eyes that had once held sadness and disappointment. In a way she liked the new look and walking out of the bathroom she went over to the window to look out at the sun which was going down in the horizon. Ryu flew over to land on her shoulder chirping excitedly and Sakura smiled in response. She held out her hand and waited for the clay dragon to crawl onto it before she slid Ryu carefully into her weapons pouch where he'd have more room and wouldn't get squashed. Then at that moment her stomach growled hungrily as if encouraging her to go get something to eat.

It was late enough so they could go out to eat now, so Sakura turned around to get Sasori up, and couldn't help but watch the red head sleep. Every once in a while he would mumble something into his pillow then suddenly his whole body went tense. Sakura frowned in concern, wondering if he was awake, but as she approached she could tell that he was still asleep. From what she could tell, he was having a nightmare of some sort.

"Sasori?" she reached out to gently shake him awake when his eyes snapped open and he pulled her down onto the bed, pinning her beneath him in less than a second. Sakura let out a startled squeak and squirmed uncomfortably at the tight grip he had on her wrists as he stared down at her with wide panic filled eyes. It was like he wasn't even seeing her at all! Terror spread through her body when she realized how easily he could harm her right now and not even know it.

"S-Sasori?" This time she spoke his name in a frightened whisper that seemed to snap him out of his current state. He blinked his eyes a few times and as soon as he recognized her he quickly removed himself off of her like he'd been burned.

"I…. Let's go eat," he said not waiting for her response as he exited the room, leaving Sakura behind on his bed who was attempting to control her erratic heartbeat.

* * *

It took almost a full minute for Sakura to relax and be able to move once more. She peeled herself off the bed and tried to forget about Sasori's freak out as she mentally reminded herself that she had to get food in her empty stomach.

Being left in charge of fetching Deidara, Sakura barged through the doors of what should have been her bedroom and quickly located the blond fast asleep on the couch instead of the bed in the corner of the room. The genjutsu she'd placed over him had worn off, and she sighed in relief at the sight of new clothes on him. Now she wouldn't have to travel with someone that had blood and sweat all over their clothes for over a week. Now if only she could get him and Sasori to take a shower...

"Come on wake up, it's time to eat!" she yelled expecting the blond to get up at the words "time to eat." However, he just laid there like a limp noodle which made her question if he was really an S ranked criminal or not. Wasn't he supposed to wake up to the slightest sounds?

Marching over to him, she grabbed a hold of his ankles and yanked him halfway across the bedroom until he finally became conscious again.

"…..W-what the hell, un!"

Sakura let go and smiled evilly as he hissed in pain. "Good you're up cause I'm starving."

Deidara glared up at her from where he was lying on the carpet. "Why did you just pull me off the bed, yeah?"

"First of all it's a couch, and second it's time to eat, and since you didn't wake up to me yelling at you, I decided that this would be the next quickest way to wake you up." She turned around and started to walk out the door.

"I'm going to kill you, yeah."

With emerald eyes twinkling mischievously, Sakura slammed the door to the bedroom in Deidara's face and bolted to the door that led to the hallway. Ripping the door open, she burst out into the hallway, nearly running into Sasori who'd been deep in thought on the other side of the door.

"Sorry," she apologized, as she moved around him in an attempt to use him as a human shield.

Sasori frowned at her strange behavior, but looked up as Deidara flew out of the room with a murderous expression on his face. "I'm going to kill you Pinky!"

Sakura's eyes narrowed. "I told you not to call me that, idiot!"

"To bad because that's your new nickname, yeah!"

"Why you," she growled, chakra began forming in her fisted hand.

"Enough, let's just go eat and then call it a night." Sasori ordered, successfully interrupting their fight. Sakura and Deidara shot each other a nasty glares before they followed the red head to the restaurant that was located on the bottom floor of their hotel.

* * *

As soon as Sakura entered the restaurant, she was amazed to see that it was poorly lit. All the lights were dimmed, and it was hard to see who was actually eating here although it was obvious the place was busy.

Sticking close to the Akatsuki members, they found a table near the back and sat down with Deidara on one side and Sakura and Sasori on the other.

It was kind of uncomfortable for Sakura and she kept glancing at the red head sitting next to her out of the corner of her eye. He stayed quiet the whole time with one arm propped up so he could rest his head on it. His usually lazy looking eyes had dark marks under them which told her how tired he was, and he appeared to be falling asleep the entire time they sat there.

Deidara talked about nothing in particular to his partner who would nod his head every once in a while, and Sakura paid close attention, hoping to get some information. However, the bond was smart and didn't give anything away as he continued to talk about some new clay creations that he'd recently come up with.

Sakura yawned in boredom, and let herself gaze out into the restaurant instead, wishing that someone would just take their orders already. Her prays were soon answered as a waitress around her own age came up and introduced herself. Her purple tinted eyes examining the two Akatsuki members as she spoke. Then when she asked for their drinks she got Deidara's and Sasori's first before she reluctantly turned to face Sakura who was pretty sure she had an annoyed look on her face.

"I'll just have some water," she said slowly, trying not to let her temper get out of hand.

The waitress gave her a curt nod and with one last look towards her newest companions then she walked back to the kitchen to get them their orders.

"Which one do you think she liked more, yeah? Me or Sasori?" Deidara asked Sakura with an annoying grin on his face.

Sakura turned to face the blond. "I don't know. From what I could see, she couldn't decide."

"I bet she liked me more, yeah." Deidara stated with a cocky grin on his face. Sasori rolled his eyes and tried to stifle another yawn.

They waited in silence for a bit until the waitress came back with their drinks and asked in an all too suggestive tone. "So what can I do for you?" Sakura wanted to groan when she saw Deidara smirk when she asked him first instead of Sasori.

"I think I'll have a plate of boiled eggs in surimi, yeah."

"Alright," she scribbled down Deidara's order and turned to Sasori. "… And you?"

"I'm not hungry."

Sakura frowned at his words and was about to tell him to at least get something when he got up and said. "I'm going back to the room."

"Are you sure?" Sakura asked worriedly. She knew that he had to be starving, but he must've been still tired from the lack of sleep he'd been getting recently.

"Yes… I'll get something to eat in the morning if we have time."

"Okay." She watched him leave and even after he disappeared from her sight, she still stared after him until the waitress loudly cleared her throat to gain her attention.

"Oh um… I'll have… the syrup-coated anko dumplings."

"I'll be right back," she said, looking at Deidara once more before going back to the kitchen again.

Sakura didn't even notice though as she bit her bottom lip while wondering how Sasori was doing. He needed to eat something, and the medic in her kept reminding her of this. He still had to be cautious with his new human body. It would be so easy for him to get sick or even die if he wasn't careful.

Thinking back to about a week ago, she went over what had happened in the first few days she'd been with the red head. When she'd been carrying his unconscious body out of the ruined Akatsuki base she knew for a fact that he was really weak and had barely any chakra. How he'd managed to get so strong in only two to three days was astonishing to her. One minute he was limping then in the next he was helping her fight off a group of rogue ninja.

From what she'd witnessed, he could regain a lot of chakra in a short amount of time. So now she had to figure out when he'd started to pretend that he was still injured.

It couldn't have been the day when the vulture attacked him, or the day when she'd returned lady Chiyo's body to Temari and the others. Maybe after they slept at the inn? She wanted to ask him so badly, but she doubted that he'd tell her.

Sighing she glanced up to find Deidara zoned out with a happy expression on his face.

"What is it?"

Deidara snapped out of his trance and responded with. "I just had a vision of blowing up that store from earlier, yeah. It would have been so wonderful and fleeting, a true masterpiece."

"You are so weird."

"I'm weird? You're the one who has pink hair." He pointed at her accusingly. "Oh and by the way is that its natural color, un?"

"Yes it's my natural hair color! And how is that weirder than having mouths on the palms of your hands."

"They're not weird and besides without them I wouldn't be able to make my art, yeah."

"Well I still think-"

"Here you go," the waitress said placing their food in front of them. "Would that be all?"

Sakura wanted to glare at the stupid waitress for interrupting her, but a random idea popped up in her head at the last second. "Actually can I have a takeout box please?"

"Sure, I'll be right back."

They waited for her to distance herself from them before they continued where their argument had left off. Neither of them backing down until the waitress came back again with Sakura's takeout box. She told Deidara that their fight would be a draw for now, and the blond agreed unhappily, figuring that he could win their little argument latter.

Sakura tilted the plate sideways and slid all her dumplings into the takeout container before standing up with her water and takeout box in her hands. "I'm going back to the room to share this with Sasori. Are you coming with or do you want to stay here?"

Deidara opened his mouth to say yes when a whole group of teenage girls came into the restaurants wearing extremely fancy dresses that exposed a lot of skin. She could practically see his mouth water, so she decided for him that his answer would be a no when he became unresponsive.

Picking up Sasori's untouched water, she made her way back to their room, with her stomach growling hungrily the entire way.

* * *

(Flashback)

Time... Time was against him.

Sasori hurried on ahead of his classmates and had graduated from the academy at the age of seven, and at the age of eight became a chunin, his constant training with the puppet master jutsu, being the cause of this.

He had nothing better to do as he waited for his parents to return. Everything had become dull and boring to him, unlike the other children who laughed and played on the streets with their friends. He'd never had any friends. Sasori was more of a loner. Not wanting to become attached to anything or anyone.

Time sped by and sadly as more weeks past, granny Chiyo began to visit his house less and less, saying that she had important business to attend to. He knew she was lying. Even he didn't want to stay in his house anymore. It was cold and lonely, and after spending so long in this place, he felt as if the house was reflecting onto him. His heart ached unbearably when he thought of his mom and dad now.

How many years had it been since they left? Two? Three? A thousand? He couldn't tell anymore. And so, to ease the always present boredom and loneliness that surrounded him he began practicing new jutsu's with his puppets. That way he could distract himself for a few hours, and when he didn't feel like practicing he created new puppets, like Crow and Black Ant.

Granny Chiyo had been so impressed when she visited his house. She had placed the bag of groceries for him on the dining room table and watched in silent awe as Sasori showed her what his newest creations could do.

Soon after that she showed him how to put his symbol on the puppets so everyone else would know who the creator was. She helped him pick a design that would stand out from others, and going over a few ideas for a couple of days, Sasori decided on a scorpion. The meaning of his name would make it easily recognizable. Plus Sasori loved the way the poisonous creature looked and began placing them on all of his puppets except the mother and father puppets. For some reason when he came to them he simply couldn't do it. So he let them be as he went to work on his next puppet.

He had to keep himself distracted. He refused to let his mind wander because when he did he would always think of "them."

* * *

Finally alone, Sasori trudged down the empty hallways of the hotel, wanting nothing other than to get some much needed sleep. His eyelids felt heavy and every once in awhile his vision blurred, definitely not a good sign.

Going up the last flight of stairs, he made it to their room and unlocked the door with his room key and walked inside. It took him about five precious seconds to realize what was happening before it was too late. As he entered there were about ten rogues waiting with their weapons at the ready, and before Sasori's sluggish mind could comprehend what he was seeing. They were on him in an instant, and it wasn't long until the red head was defeated and his hands were tied behind him.

They put him in a chair that had been next to their mini table in the room and surrounded him. Sasori quickly changed from sleepy mode to survival mode and was now seriously pissed off. His eyes narrowed dangerously and he gnashed his teeth together in anger, as he pondered over which one he'd kill first.

One of them stepped forward, unfazed by Sasori's piercing glare, and in an emotionless voice he said calmly.

"Now… tell us where we can find Deidara or you'll regret it."

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are greatly appreciated. :)**

**Oh yeah, and I just made a poll of the next SasoSaku stories I want to write/type. So please be sure to visit my profile and vote. The poll will be open until I finish It Was You and then I'll start on the winning story.**


	10. The Poison

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, I got a bunch of reviews telling me to update my other story, so I did that as fast as I could, but it was a nice little breather since I was stuck on coming up with an idea of how to end the chapter. And as for the beginning, I blame it on watching way too many Saw movies recently, however, I can assure you that it's not as bad... I hope. Anyways I hope you enjoy the next chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or The Poison by Bullet For My Valentine**

* * *

**Chapter 10: The Poison**

* * *

There were not many times in his life where Sasori had screwed up. Unlike Deidara, he preferred to carefully plan out every crucial detail to every mission. It didn't matter how easy or how hard the mission was. It was faster and much more efficient plus there was hardly any times where something went wrong.

However, as the rogues snickered amongst themselves while Sasori struggled silently against the ropes that bound him to the chair, he knew he had screwed up big time. If only he could free just one hand then he might have a chance. It was as if they knew his hands were his major weakness. Without the ability to manipulate chakra strings, he was at a huge disadvantage.

"Tell us where Deidara is?" The rogue in charge commanded. His chakra flared warningly as if trying to intimidate Sasori into spilling out all his information.

Sasori smirked in response and chuckled at the look of disbelief that flashed briefly in the rogue's onyx eyes. "Fool. Do you honestly think that I would tell you where he is?" Sasori rolled his eyes. "Even if you torture me, I would end up dying before you would get anything out of me."

The once victorious atmosphere in the room turned quickly into silence and tension as the captured red head and rogue simply stared at each other. Neither seemed pleased at the current situation now, and after some time, the rogue finally broke eye contact and walked to the other side of the room, his footsteps on the hardwood floor caused the puppeteer's heart to beat faster.

The ropes on Sasori's wrists felt like they were cutting into him painfully, making it hard to think. He kept reminding himself that he'd been through much worse, but after twenty years of experiencing no physical pain, it felt a lot worse than what it actually was.

"So… you won't tell us, anything, even if we torture you?" The rogue questioned as he turned around to face his captive. Sasori nodded in response, showing no emotion even though he was panicking on the inside. "Very well then," the rogue said motioning for one of his muscular subordinates to come forward. He leaned close to the rogue in charge as he whispered orders into his ear then with a stiff nod he prowled behind the fidgeting red head and waited for the signal to begin.

"So, not even torture will break you? We'll see about that." The rogue said with a mischievous sparkle in his onyx eyes. Taking a deep breath he continued on. "My subordinates have told me that you are a puppeteer, although you do not appear to be Sasori of the red sand. You are much too young, fifteen from the looks of it, yet you are very skilled with the puppet master jutsu."

Chocolate eyes widened slightly in shock. They couldn't have known this! Even if they hadn't figured out who he really was, ordinary rogue ninja shouldn't be able to know these kinds of things. In addition to that, what did they want from his partner? The blond must have done something terrible to piss off so many rogues.

The sound of footsteps came to a halt which pulled Sasori from his thoughts once more.

"… And what good is a puppet master if he is unable to use his fingers?"

Barely contained fear built up inside of Sasori as the question filled the room. The puppeteer's fingers twitched as horrible images flashed across his mind. A shiver crawled up his spine as Sasori anticipated what they would do next.

The rogue in charge looked past the red head to the rogue standing behind Sasori and nodded slightly. Sasori tensed as he heard movement from behind him, and cringed as the rogue's filthy hands made contact with his own as he untied one hand before retying the other one to the chair once more. Sasori was tempted to make chakra strings during his brief moment of freedom; however, one quick glance to his right informed him that it would be pointless. All of the other rogues in the room had their weapons out and at the ready.

"Now then, I'll ask again," the rogue said with a threatening tone. He moved back to stand before Sasori, eagerness and mischievousness clear even on his half masked face. "Tell us where Deidara is, or I'll order my subordinate to break one of your fingers."

Sasori glared daggers at the man in front of him. "… I'm never going to tell you. I'm not like some other pieces of trash that would sell out a teammate, even if they can be quite a nuisance at times."

The rogue smirked. "So be it."

Five seconds passed by like hours to the red head, the ticking noise of the clock on the wall counting down to when the pain would begin. Then there was a sickening snap which was the only warning he got before blinding pain brought unshed tears to his eyes. The pain was so intense that for a moment, Sasori thought that he would throw up.

"So, will you answer my question now?"

* * *

As Sakura walked up the stairs cradling the takeout box of dumplings and drinks in her hands, she began to notice something odd. She could sense a lot of chakra signatures a few floors up which made her a bit confused. Instantly she masked her own chakra out of habit, but continued on her way, hoping that it was just nothing. If not she might be able to run back down the stairs and get Deidara to help her.

A few more minutes of stair climbing, Sakura began to get paranoid as the some of the chakra signatures began to flare occasionally. Her thighs were beginning to ache as she increased her pace to see what was going on. She couldn't help but wonder if Sasori was alright. She didn't sense his chakra at all, and she was only two flights of stairs away from the room their floor was on.

After finally reaching the right floor, Sakura crept down the long hallway, and quickly came to a halt. The chakra signatures were right ahead, and they seemed to be coming from inside their room.

Moving slow, and cautiously, Sakura placed the food on the ground, and straightened back up, pressing her ear against the door to listen in on what was going on. She could hear someone speaking, but couldn't make out any words, however, she was absolutely certain that it was not Sasori who was talking. Then she felt one of the chakra signatures flare once more, and the distinct sound of someone in pain. Sakura's fist clenched tightly and her mood darkened as images of Sasori getting hurt crept into her mind. It looked as if she wouldn't be having a completely relaxing day after all.

Taking a few backwards steps, that way she could get a decent running start, Sakura gathered as much chakra into her right arm as fast as she could before lunging at the door with all her might. The door shattered on impact, and some of the pieces of wood flew across the room, cutting up a few of the room's occupants. Emerald eyes did a fast scan of the room, and widened at the sight of Sasori tied to a chair. A big muscular ninja behind held one of his arms behind him, gripping his wrist tightly, causing the red head to wince slightly.

"Let... Him... Go," Sakura growled warningly.

A few of the rogues recovered and stared at the pink haired kunoichi in shock as they took in the sight of the demolished door she was currently stepping on. Their knuckles turned white as the grips on their weapons tightened, waiting for her to attack, but she didn't. Its not that she didn't want to, the only reason she held back was because of the situation Sasori was in. She didn't doubt that the rogue behind him could easily end his life while she beat up his companions. It was too much of a risk that she wasn't willing to make. She would just have to wait for an opening then she could strike. She would have to be fast though, or else Sasori would...

"My, my. Isn't this a nice surprise? Tell me, do you know where we can find Deidara? I was asking your friend here that question earlier, but he just wasn't willing to give us the information." A rogue to Sakura's right said. As Sakura glanced at him, she knew immediately that she couldn't trust him.

"Give me back my companion, and I'll tell you," Sakura negotiated, her eyes narrowed threateningly.

The rogue laughed. "And how am I supposed trust you?"

"I could ask you the same."

He laughed again. "I like you kunoichi, it's too bad we had to meet like this." The rogue looked over at Sasori. "But I'm afraid that we can't just give him back to you, sorry."

Sakura sighed. "Well that's too bad, I guess I'm just going to have to kick all of your asses and steal him back."

_Jeez that sounded wrong..._

Directing her flow of chakra down to her feet, Sakura rushed through the group, slashing as many people as she could with a kunai as she made her way towards Sasori. Avoiding a blow to her head at the last second, Sakura twisted to the side and leaped up into the air. With terrifying accuracy she aimed for the rogue behind Sasori and threw her kunai as hard as she could, getting him right in the neck. The man let out a chocked cry of pain before collapsing to the ground, dead.

Fending off a few more rogues, Sakura finally reached Sasori and grabbed the back of the chair in one hand and dragged him into the extra room, slamming the door shut behind her. Letting go of the chair, she picked up the heavy couch Deidara had slept on and used it to barricade the door in an attempt to gain a little bit of time to see if the puppeteer was alright.

Turning around to face the red head, the first thing she noticed was that he was trembling. Whether it be from pain or anger she had no idea. Approaching him she went to untie his other arm, and couldn't help but notice how he flinched at her touch. She quickly tossed aside the rope when she was done, and walked back to stand in front of the chair. "Sasori, are you alright?" She could tell that he was trying his best to show no emotion, but she could tell that he was in pain from the way his body tensed slightly every few seconds.

"Yeah, I'll be fine, brat. Now let's get out of here."

"Do you have a plan?"

"Yes. You take out as many of them as possible while I track down and kill their leader." He turned to her with an angry gleam in his eyes. "Don't keep me waiting, or I'll leave you behind."

She nodded. "Alright, I'll do my best." Walking back to the door, she could hear the rogues pounding on it from the opposite side. Despite the current situation, Sakura found herself grinning as she prepared to punch this door down like the last one. With a huge booming noise that would no doubt attract a bunch of attention from their neighbors in the other rooms, the door collapsed, knocking out at least three of the rogues that had been stupid enough to wait by the door. Then everything turned into utter chaos as kunai, punches, weapons, kicks, scratches, and jutsu's filled the room, but in no time at all, Sakura had lost sight of the puppeteer which made her worry that he'd left without her, so she began moving towards the hallway as fast as she could manage.

Three minutes later, she'd made it into the hallway, gasping for air just as a loud scream filled the area, causing her to cringe, but when she looked up she felt relieved at the sight of Sasori walking towards her and away from the body that was sprawled out on the floor. _Well it looked like someone got their revenge..._ She was about to follow him as he passed her and headed for the stairs when something on the ground caught her eye. The food. Her stomach growled hungrily at the thought of leaving it there on the floor, so for the first time ever, Sakura was risking her life for dumplings._ They better be worth it later,_ she thought to herself.

Snatching the food and drinks off the ground, she sprinted down the hallway to catch up with Sasori before jumping into the nearest elevator. Ninjas weren't supposed to go into elevators since they could easily turn into a death trap, but they were desperate... and Sakura didn't want to spill the drinks... She could see the surprised expression on Sasori's face before he quickly resumed his emotionless state and decided to follow her lead since their room was on one of the top floors.

The doors slid shut after a few seconds, and the awkward elevator music decided that it was time to turn on, making both Sakura and Sasori frown and attempt to not to pay attention to it.

"So what happened?" Sakura asked when the elevator jerked alive and began descending towards the lobby.

Sasori sighed. "I got ambushed as soon as I got back to the room. That was the first time in years I allowed myself to let my guard down. Being human again is such a nuisance."

"Well at least you're okay," Sakura said trying to be optimistic. The red head's chocolate eyes flickered over to her, and became captivated by the small smile that she now wore. She could read it in his eyes, the question that he wanted to ask her.

You're glad that I'm okay?

They were both caught in what appeared to be a staring contest until a loud ding echoed throughout the tiny elevator which signaled that it was time to go. Wasting no time, they exited and rushed back into the restaurant looking for any sight of the blond. Both of them nearly groaned when they caught sight of him hanging out with a group of girls, having a blast.

"Deidara, we have to go!" Sakura yelled, over the crowd.

Deidara instantly looked up and stared at them in confusion. Then looking back at the seven girls at his table he mouthed back to her. 'I'm busy.'

Sakura was about ready to storm through the crowd when she saw a flash of pain on Sasori's face. It shocked her for a moment until the medic in her screamed to hurry up, so she could help him. If only Deidara wasn't so annoying then they could get out of this place. Moving as fast as possible in the dark restaurant, Sakura eventually made it to Deidara's table and told him. "We have to go _now_."

"Can't I have just five minutes, yeah?" He raised his hand showing her five fingers while the mouth on his palm grinned.

"No, this is an emergency, so hurry up." Sakura said growing impatient.

Deidara scowled unhappily and turned back around in his chair. "I'm sorry ladies; it looks as if I won't be able to stay with you any longer. Pinky here says that it's time for me to go." He stood up and to Sakura's disgust some of the girls actually pouted and tried to talk Deidara into staying a little bit longer. Deidara politely declined their attempts at getting him to stay, however, which was something Sakura never would have thought possible and then he followed her out of the restaurant, rejoining Sasori in the front of the place.

They briefly informed Deidara about what was going on, and then ran from the hotel, trying to distance themselves as much as they could from the rogues.

* * *

Sakura, Sasori, and Deidara did their best to disappear into the crowd, and when they felt like they'd distanced themselves enough, they stopped to catch their breath in an abandoned alleyway.

"Well this sucks, un!" Deidara complained.

"I know," Sakura grumbled, leaning back against the brick wall behind her. "Well, I guess I'll start looking for someplace to sleep for the night. Stay here until I get back if not I probably won't be able to find you guys."

"Why do you get to find the hotel, yeah?"

"Because you're too recognizable and Sasori's hurt," Sakura explained, her eyes shifting over to the red head who was sitting on the ground panting from the long run through the town. He'd refused to let her heal him, so later tonight she would probably have to force him to let her heal his injuries.

Deidara looked unhappy at this, but finally agreed with her. "Fine, whatever, just find one that doesn't have bugs crawling around, has heated showers, nice beds, towels, f-"

"I get it, I'll find something decent." Returning her attention back to Sasori she said. "I'll heal you as soon as we get to the new hotel room."

He shook his head. "It'd just be a waste of chakra."

"Whatever, I'm still going to heal you, whether you like it or not." She told him while noticing that he cradled one of his arms against his chest. Sakura gave him a worried look before heading out into the less busy streets with a couple hotels already in mind. After watching Sasori reject over a dozen hotels earlier that day she knew a few that would be nice to spend the night in. Plus they were on the other side of the village, and away from the rogues who'd managed to escape and were probably searching for them.

* * *

Deidara watched Sakura until she'd disappeared into the crowd before he turned back to his partner. There was something different about him since he last saw him back at the Akatsuki base. For once he could see Sasori's emotions clearly for the first time in the estimated five years he'd been with him. Not mention that this was the first time he'd actually seen him tired. Normally Sasori would never get tired. Maybe the pink haired girl had done something to him? Besides kill him.

"So Sasori, why did you invite Pinky to hang out with us, un?" Deidara began trying to understand his partner's intentions.

Sasori's tired face glanced up and he sighed. "It's none of your concern."

Deidara frowned, trying to rein in his temper. "Too bad because I'm concerned, yeah. Didn't you even consider all the possible consequences of doing this? She's a Leaf village kunoichi, who will no doubt try to kill us or run off as soon as she gets what she wants. And I don't get why she's so obsessed with finding Itachi's little brother, yeah. What does he even mean to her? Can you at least tell me what is going on, so I can try to understand what you're planning on doing with her, yeah?"

The red head listened attentively to Deidara's ranting until he was finished. Then using his good hand, he ran his fingers through his crimson hair as he gathered his thoughts. There was no way he would tell Deidara what he was planning on doing. If he did so, there was no doubt in his mind that the blond would throw a fit. He decided that in this case, it would be best to leave him in the dark.

"The girl is only a pawn in what I have planned. Don't fret over nothing Deidara. You should know better than to question my decisions. Unlike you, I know what I'm doing." Sasori glared accusingly at the blond who stood on the opposite side of the alleyway. "A better question right now would be: why are the rogues so interested in you?"

"Fret over nothing! Wait, w-what, un?" Deidara asked, confused about the sudden change of topic.

"What do you know about the rogue ninja that have been after us recently?"

"Hey wait a minute; I was the one who was asking questions here, not y-"

"Answer the question Deidara, you know what happens when I get angry don't you?"

Deidara growled in frustration before telling the red head. "I don't know why they want me, yeah. I didn't even know that I was their target. I've never even seen those idiots in my entire life, yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive, un."

Sasori became quiet once more as he began eliminating some of the possibilities for the rogues strange obsession with Deidara. He knew for a fact that Deidara would not lie to him unless he wanted a death sentence, but none of the other options sounded right. The rogues seemed desperate to find the blond, but there was no real reason why. This was odd...

They waited in silence for a while waiting for Sakura to return, when Deidara finally couldn't take it anymore and broke the awkward silence that had fallen over them.

"Alright I won't ask you what your true intentions for the girl are again, but I have to warn you that if she tries to kill me. I'll end her life quite artistically, yeah."

"I won't let you blow her up Deidara."

"Why not? Are you getting attached to her, un?"

Sasori rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not brat. I just don't see how blowing her up is an artistic way of dying. Poisoning her then letting her slowly fade away into the afterlife and making her into an everlasting puppet would be more fitting for her."

Deidara scoffed. "Don't be absurd, that's not an artistic way of dying at all. True ar-" He opened his mouth to continue when someone interrupted him.

"What are you two arguing about?" Sakura's gaze shifted curiously between the two.

"We're arguing about what would be the best way to kill you. What do you think, poisoning you then making you into a puppet or blowing you up, yeah?"

Sakura raised an eyebrow at this and shook her head. "You guys are so weird."

* * *

On the way to the next hotel, Sakura glanced at Sasori out of the corner of her eye. He looked absolutely exhausted, and his feet dragged on the dirt road. His usually lazy looking eyes had dark markings underneath, and he held out one of his arms as straight as he could next to his side as if even brushing against something would cause him pain.

When they finally reached the hotel, they headed right to their room that only had one large bed and a cream colored couch. Sakura groaned as soon as she realized this. She remembered herself specifically asking the man at the front desk for a extra room attached or at least one room with two beds. What were they going to do now? At least before Sakura didn't have to share a bed with Sasori, and there was no doubt in her mind that Deidara would want the couch.

"Alright then, what are we going to do?" She asked waiting for the two Akatsuki members to decide while she put the food she'd rescued in the refrigerator in the kitchen. Right now she was too tired now to even think about eating.

"I call the couch, yeah!"

..._ Of course._

"I don't care," Sasori replied trudging slowly towards the bed.

Sakura was about to follow him so that she could get some sleep too when she remembered that she still needed to heal the red head. "Sasori sit down and I'll fix your injuries."

The puppeteer plopped down on the bed, ignoring her, obviously not wanting to do anything except sleep. However, if his wounds were serious he could be in serious trouble later, not to mention if something went wrong when they met the spy the next day, he wouldn't be able to fight back, especially if his arm was injured.

"I'm going to heal you no matter what, so stop acting so stubborn."

Sasori mumbled into the pillow his head was lying on. "I don't care. Just do it tomorrow."

"No, I'm going to heal it now before it becomes infected." Sakura said in a commanding tone that made Deidara chuckle in amusement from where he sat on the couch.

Putting her hands on her hips, Sakura moved over to the side of the bed Sasori was lying on, and waited to see if he would get up so she could heal him. Instead his chocolate colored eyes narrowed challengingly at her, as if daring her to try to heal him. A normal person would probably flinch and run away from such a harsh gaze, but Sakura was used to dealing with troublesome patients. Yet she'd never met one that was as beautiful and deadly as Sasori.

He was exactly what his name meant, a scorpion. If you got to close, it could sting and poison you, but if you keep your distance and watch it from afar then it could tolerate you. Still Sakura didn't understand how she could stand so close to Sasori and not feel intimidated at all unlike before in the cave. Sure she knew he was strong, she'd witnessed his strength and skills firsthand, however, as she watched the red head stare back at her there was no fear inside her like there used to be. It wasn't like her to become so comfortable with the enemy after such a short time together which only made her more confused about the situation.

"So are you going to stand there all night, brat?"

Sakura jumped at the sound of Sasori's voice and quickly replied with. "N-no... I just need you to move so that I can heal you."

"Just leave me alone, brat. I'm sure that I'll live until morning."

_That's it!_ Sakura thought as the last of her patience wore out. Walking to the edge of the bed, Sakura grabbed a hold of Sasori's shoulders and moved him over a foot, and pushed him onto his back, so that she could sit on the bed. The startled red head tried to weakly shove her off the bed with his good arm, but Sakura quickly snatched his wrist and pinned it to the mattress. Sasori fidgeted uncomfortably and growled warningly in the back of his throat which made Sakura smirk triumphantly as she leaned over him to get a look at his other arm that he cradled protectively to his chest.

"Um, should I leave the room or something, un?"

Both of the struggling ninja paused and glanced over at the blond who stared uncertainly back at them.

Sakura hoped that her now heated face would be mistaken for anger as she yelled. "I'm not going to do anything like that, pervert!"

"From this angle it kind of looks like you are, yeah."

"Shut up, I'm just trying to heal him!"

"Are you sure, un?"

"Yes, you idiot, I'm quite sure."

"Alright then carry on, yeah." Deidara said with grin as Sasori gave him a pissed off look for not helping him. However, Deidara figured that this was the best way that he could get revenge on his partner for not telling him the information from earlier, and he was enjoying every second of watching this.

Sakura rolled her eyes, and reached out to take a hold of the injured arm, but hesitated when she saw the tiniest bit of fear in Sasori's eyes. She frowned at that before gently grasping onto his wrist and pulling his arm towards her. Sasori winced slightly which didn't go unnoticed by Sakura, but she gasped in shock at what she discovered. The stupid rogues had broken all the fingers on his hand except for his thumb. She winced in sympathy, inwardly cursing herself for not forcing him into letting her see this sooner.

Hovering over his pointer finger, Sakura quickly told him. "I'm going to have to reset it before I heal it, however, while I'm healing I'll do my best to numb the pain to the best of my abilities."

Sasori nodded and braced himself, but accidently let out a hiss of pain as she grabbed the finger and reset it as fast as she could. Emerald eyes cast down at him worriedly as she heard this, but she quickly went to work with fixing the damage that was done. Halfway through the process, Sakura remembered that since Sasori was a puppeteer he must've been worried about his hands getting injured or possibly crushed to dust in her incredibly strong hands, but when she checked to see how he was doing, she could only stare in disbelief. He'd fallen asleep! She couldn't believe this; he actually had fallen asleep while his enemy was less than a foot away from him. He must have been extremely tired to allow this to happen.

Yet didn't this mean that he was beginning to trust her? _No wait, that is insane! Sasori trusting me_? Sakura thought in disbelief. She'd helped kill him about a week ago, and yet strangely here they were with Sakura healing Sasori while he slept peacefully beside her.

Switching to the last finger that was broken, Sasori murmured something incoherent in his sleep then came silent once more as Sakura's chakra began to dull the pain. She quickly finished and let out a relieved sigh when she realized that she still had half of her recovered chakra left. She didn't want to be a burden if things went wrong and they had to fight tomorrow at the Tenchi bridge.

Sakura slid Sasori back to where he was originally trying to sleep before she got off the bed and stretched her sore muscles. _Why did I stay in such an uncomfortable position the whole time?_ She complained mentally to herself as she tiredly made her way to the other side of the bed. The only things she wanted to do now was to get some rest since the time was close to ten at night, and figure out her new messed up feelings that she felt towards Sasori.

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are very much appreciated :)**

**Thank you so much for all the reviews, they made me very happy. Oh and I finally decided on how to end this story, and so far the whole thing is about twenty chapters, but there might be more. **

**Also keep the votes coming on my poll. If you voted already I just reset the poll so that you can vote again. The total amount of votes for each story can be found on my profile.**

**Anyways, the next time I update will be during winter break, so the next update will be soon!**


	11. Tears Don't Fall

**A/N: Wow that writer's block was horrible! Grrr I wanted to upload this a few days after Christmas, but then the writer's block kicked in and stuff. So I'm very very sorry about the late update, and I hope you all had an awesome holiday break! Oh and all the exciting stuff will happen next chapter, this is the filler chapter before all the actiony stuff begins.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the song Tears Don't Fall by Bullet for My Valentine.**

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**Chapter 11: Tears Don't Fall**

* * *

Every few hours during the night, Sakura and Deidara took turns on guard duty, which was irritating to them, but they figured it was better to be safe than sorry. They had decided to leave Sasori out of it and let him sleep though, since he'd barely slept at all during the past few days, and neither of them were brave enough to wake the puppeteer up. From what Sakura had learned during her short time with Sasori, he was definitely not a morning person.

Sometime in the early morning, Sakura felt herself being poked awake once more to her irritation by none other than her annoying blond companion. She slowly opened her emerald eyes to see Deidara staring down at her from where he stood next to the bed, his tired features making her wonder if she had a similar look on her face.

"It's your turn, un." He said before he walked back to the couch and began packing up his things.

Sakura grumbled quietly to herself and yawned before sitting up on the bed with exhaustion rolling off of her in waves.

"I have some errands to run for Sasori, and I'll hopefully be back in a few hours. Do you think you can manage on your own, un?" Deidara asked with a teasing tone. He reached down to pick up his two pouches of clay he'd bought earlier that day while pick pocketing. When it was his turn to keep watch, Deidara was working hard on making some new detonating clay and storing it in his two new clay pouches, that way he'd be prepared for later today at the Tenchi bridge.

Sakura shot him a peeved look that lost its effect when he caught sight of her current hair style. He could honestly say that he'd never seen bed head that terrible until now.

"I think I'll be fine." Sakura deadpanned as Deidara attempted to silence his laughter. "... So what are you going to do for Sasori?"

"I can't tell you, Pinky. It's a secret, yeah."

The pink haired kunoichi's eyes narrowed suspiciously at the blond who'd finally stopped laughing, however, amusement still sparkled in his bright blue eyes. _Why did I even think that for a second he'd tell me anything? _

"Well have fun with grumpy while I'm gone, yeah." Deidara said cheerfully as he slipped out the window, and tossed a clay bird into the air below him. He made a quick hand sign to increase its size before he landed safely on its back. Then he turned around to see Sakura watching him tiredly from her spot on the bed that was next to the window.

"Try not to have too much fun without me."

"Will you just leave already," Sakura hissed.

If at all possible, Deidara's grin widened as he succeeded in getting a reaction out of her. Then ordering the clay bird to take off, he soared high into the sky. That way he wouldn't be spotted by Rock ninja lurking about in the town. He had other things to worry about than some stupid lower level shinobi.

Changing his clay creation's direction, he took off towards the closest Akatsuki base. If things went according to plan then he'd be in and out without any problems at all. Besides, there were only a few things that he needed to pick up, so it shouldn't be too difficult of a task for him.

* * *

It was still early in the morning by the time Sakura and Sasori left the village. Sasori had refused to get out of bed for nearly fifteen minutes before he had sluggishly forced himself to take a shower and eat the leftover dumplings with Sakura. Thinking back to last night when she'd questioned herself if they were worth risking her life over, she smiled as she answered with a definite yes. Actually they were probably the best dumplings she'd ever had, and when she checked to see if Sasori was enjoying them, she raised an eyebrow in surprise at how quickly he shoved them into his mouth. It kind of reminded her of Naruto eating ramen.

The heat was sweltering and uncomfortable, but luckily they would be under trees once they got to Grass country. The shade would be a pleasant relief from all the sticky hot weather that left Sakura's skin sunburned red in many random spots on her body. She was jealous that Sasori and Deidara never seemed to have these problems having grown up in the hottest places on Earth. She was certain that she would resemble a tomato by the end of the day unlike the other two.

Glancing over at the crimson haired ninja, Sakura realized that he'd been awfully quiet all morning which concerned her. Maybe he was embarrassed about falling asleep on her last night? No, he didn't seem to mind those kinds of things unless they were really embarrassing. Then what? _Man, all this awkward silence is starting to get on my nerves_, she complained to herself. _Maybe if I ask him about some things, he'll start talking to me and this trip won't be so boring and awkward._

"So Sasori, what are the plans… once we reach the Tenchi bridge?" She asked, yawning halfway through.

The crimson haired ninja glanced up at the slowly rising golden sun before responding. "… Deidara increased the size of the C2 dragon again, and it'll be waiting for us somewhere around there." He pointed straight in the direction that they were walking. "Once we find it, we ride it to the Tenchi bridge, and hopefully the idiot won't take so long getting the supplies I asked him to retrieve, so that we will all meet up an hour or so before my spy arrives."

Well at least that meant that they wouldn't have to run that distance. They probably wouldn't even make it in time if they had to do that. Sakura blinked a few times until realization dawned upon her. The blond jerk had stolen Ryu sometime while she'd been sleeping last night! He'd better not have hurt her little dragon or she was going to punch his freaking head off the next time she saw him!

"... Hey brat, why did…?" Sasori paused not knowing if he should ask or not until finally he decided that it wasn't worth it. "Never mind… Such a pointless question anyways."

"What?" Sakura questioned, curiosity getting the better of her, quickly replacing the anger she felt towards Deidara.

Sasori sighed. "Forget it, it's not important."

"But I want to know," Sakura persisted, however she cautiously began to watch his movements in case he got mad and she needed to retreat. She was never quite sure with what to expect from Sasori.

His chocolate eyes flickered over to meet her emerald ones, holding her gaze for less than a second before looking back down at the dirt covered ground beneath him. "Fine… Why did you… jump in front of me back when we were fighting? Under normal circumstances you would have died."

The pink haired kunoichi frowned, trying to understand what the puppeteer was talking about until images of their fight at the Akatsuki base flashed through her head. Then she remembered leaping in front of lady Chiyo to protect her from the fatal blow from Sasori's poisoned katana. The sting of the sword as it pierced her flesh was still fresh in her memory, and she winced at the reminder.

Finally meeting Sasori's puzzled face, she smiled faintly as she told him. "I would never let someone precious to me die if there's still something I can do about it. It wouldn't matter if I had to go through hell and back to save them, or even if I ended up dying. All I want to do is protect those closest to me, and that's why I have to save Sasuke before Orochimaru takes over his body. I can't stand by helplessly and let that happen to my old teammate." Tears were beginning to form in the corner of her eyes as she mentioned Sasuke.

"And that's why I've trained so hard for nearly three years. Pushing myself constantly to increase my skills because all I want to do is protect those precious to me."

Sasori rolled his eyes. "Nonsense, I still don't see the point in throwing away your life for an old hag you just met. Are you trying to say that she was really close to you... How ridiculous."

"You still don't get it, do you?" Sakura asked. Her violent temper barely contained as her hands fisted at her sides. "Of course she was important to me! She risked her life to save me, and then died shortly after to bring you back to life in exchange for her own. Does that mean nothing to you!"

"... No, not really."

Emerald eyes narrowed into slits as she restrained herself from punching the guy. Did he really not care about his own grandmother? What was his problem? From what she'd witnessed, lady Chiyo had been a kind old kunoichi. The way he spoke of her with such obvious disdain, it made Sakura absolutely furious.

"Actually, I'm quite pleased that the old hag is dead now. I couldn't stand that witch."

_That does it!_

Sakura's chakra flared, but just as she was about to fling herself at the puppeteer and knock some sense into him, a loud ferocious chain of snarls froze her in her place.

White blotted out her vision as Ryu rushed past her and smashed an unsuspecting Sasori into the ground with one of his massive feet. His razor sharp teeth bared just inches from the startled puppeteer's face. The dragon, however, was smart and didn't crush Sasori under its heavy weight, but it was still hard for the red head to breathe.

Sakura was rooted to the spot where she'd stopped before this had happened, but quickly snapped back into reality when Sasori let out the strangest uncharacteristic yelp of alarm as Ryu slammed him onto his back on the rough terrain. She could tell that rocks were jabbing him in the back which looked really painful, and the puppeteer squirmed uncomfortably underneath the dragon's hold, trying to get his grip to loosen on him. Yet Ryu's onyx eyes glared at the red head's attempts and added more weight on him along with digging his claws into his shoulders and sides.

The pink haired kunoichi was about to laugh at the randomness of the situation when Ryu's behavior turned more violent like he was going to seriously injure Sasori. What in the world made Ryu want to hurt Sasori? Did he think the verbal fight was going to turn into something more drastic? Maybe Ryu thought Sasori was going to harm her, and went to her aid. The more she thought of it that way, the more it made sense to her, but she still had to stop the clay dragon before he hurt the puppeteer. Sure she was upset with him, and he was being an insensitive jerk at the moment, but that didn't mean she should let Ryu kill him.

"Alright Ryu, I think he's had enough." Sakura told the dragon gently, knowing it would be far more effective than yelling. Ryu's ears flicked backward as he listened to the girl, however, he continued to growl threateningly at Sasori who was caught between feeling angry and scared. The dragon leaned back then, like he was going to release Sasori, when he suddenly lurched forward and let out a terrifying roar that reverberated through Sasori's entire body. Then finally leaving Sasori alone, Ryu stalked off with its ears flattened against his head unhappily and waited patiently for Sakura a short distance away.

Sasori gasped for air, and simply lied on the ground as he refilled his lungs with much need oxygen. His chocolate eyes soon reopened, though, to glare accusingly at Sakura who stared innocently back. _Oh come on! How was she supposed to know that a clay dragon was going to come out of nowhere and try to rip his head off?_

"What? He was only protecting me, and I got him to let go of you. Let's get going, we have a lot of land we need to travel across if we want to make it on time."

Sasori didn't respond as he jumped to his feet and dusted himself off. Wincing as he accidentally stretched the areas where Ryu's claws and the rocks had dug into his flesh.

They took off on Ryu, neither of them speaking for the entire trip, making it very awkward and uncomfortable for everyone except Ryu who simply purred in delight as Sakura rubbed behind his ears the entire trip.

* * *

**(Flashback)**

_They aren't coming back. They aren't coming back. They aren't coming back._

These words continuously echoed in Sasori's mind as he sat curled up on the floor in his bedroom.

_What happened? Did something go wrong on their mission? How many years had it been since he'd last seen them? Seven? No, that couldn't be right. They were supposed to come back five years ago. Where were they?_

The loneliness he felt had created a painful black void inside of him. He remained the same broken child while the world around him changed and moved on. He desperately wanted to run away from the raw pain, anger, and fear that was building up over the long torturous years, but the thought of abandoning all hope that his parents would return was too much for him. It was really the only thing he lived for now. What would be left of him once he let go? Would he be like one of his puppets? Completely dead inside, living as a tool for his village to use whenever they pleased.

Granny Chiyo had stopped visiting him now, stating that a twelve year old shinobi could live on their own, and so Sasori's only human companion deserted him. All he had left were the puppets that littered his room. There lifeless eyes watching him slowly drift into insanity.

He went on less and less missions, always coming up with random excuses for not being able to do them. What was the point anyway? Everything in his life up till now just seemed so... so... pointless.

Sasori had wanted to do something that would be remembered for centuries to come. That way his parents might hear of it and come back home, but he was at a loss at what to do. Everything he had once treasured was slowly fading away except for his puppets.

Sasori's crazed eyes searched all around his room, but all he saw was: puppets, puppets, puppets. He cursed out loud and became silent for a moment until he began giggling quietly to himself like an insane person. _That's it! Why haven't I thought of it before?_

"Puppets," he rasped jumping to his feet. The answer was so simple that he smirked proudly in triumph. He would most certainly be remembered for eternity for doing this, and he could search until the ends of time for his long lost parents and never have to succumb to his weak human body's needs. Now all he had to do was figure out how to become a puppet. An immortal human puppet…

* * *

They reached the Tenchi bridge with about an hour to spare.

The whole entire ride there had been silent, and tension gripped the atmosphere around Sakura and Sasori. They hadn't said a single word since Ryu took off towards Grass country, and they even tried to keep as much space as possible between them, neither wanting to get close to the other. So Sakura remained perched on top of Ryu's head while Sasori sat in between the dragon's shoulder blades.

Once they had found the bridge, Sakura hopped off of Ryu and patted his neck affectionately before turning to face Sasori. The crimson haired ninja eyed her coldly as he leapt gracefully off the clay dragon and landed quietly beside her. His voice had a prickly edge to it as he told her. "Mask your chakra brat, and follow me. I'll tell you everything that you need to know."

Sakura was a bit taken aback by the anger in his voice that he'd never used on her before. Not even when she was in a fight to the death with him back at the Akatsuki base. Was he really that upset about their argument they'd had just a few hours ago? She never meant to make him mad, but now that she had, she felt an uncomfortable churning in her stomach. It hurt for some reason as he used that tone of voice with her. Common sense told her that he was her enemy and it didn't matter, but... She sighed, why did this have to be so confusing?

Doing what he asked of her, she masked her chakra and trailed a little distance behind him, first making sure that Ryu would stay put and wouldn't get into any trouble. There was a road leading up to the bridge, but Sasori veered off the path and they instead took a small detour through the forest next to the road. Sakura tried her best to keep up only to get cut up from all the pricker bushes lying about. Long scratches decorated her arms, and the stinging from the after affect drove her crazy. Seriously, why were they doing this if it was Sasori's spy? It wasn't like they were meeting up with an enemy shinobi.

"Couldn't we have...? Crap!... ow! ow! ow!" Right as she'd been about to ask why they were doing this, she stumbled over a log and fell right into a pricker bush. She cringed as the thorns dug into all the exposed parts of her flesh and pulled back in an effort to get out. However, the thorns only seemed to dig in deeper causing her to whimper pathetically and cease all of her previous movements. "S-Sa... Sasori.. can y-you get me out of here?"

She could barely see anything since the top half of her body had fallen into the bush, so when she didn't hear anything at first, she panicked thinking that he'd gone off without her. However, right as she was about to call again for help, a shadow loomed over her, blocking out the sunlight that had managed to make it past the tree branches above her. Sasori's amused voice made her irritation spike up, but at the same time it served to calm her frantic nerves. "How pathetic... Honestly are you a ninja or not?"

Sakura didn't respond, waiting to see what the puppeteer would do, and nearly gasped when she felt his feather light touches on her arm, skillfully taking out each and every individual thorn from her ravaged arms. It didn't hurt nearly as bad as she thought it would, and there were only two times where the thorns almost refused to let go of her torn up arms. She cringed as Sasori tugged hard on those to get them out, but for the rest of the thorn removal she stayed perfectly still as she waited patiently for Sasori to get her out. _How humiliating_, she thought miserably. _Right after I yelled at him a few hours ago, I manage to get stuck in a pricker bush and need his help to get out of it._

For the billionth time that day, another blanket of silence covered them which made Sakura grit her teeth in frustration. Sure it was normal for Sasori not to talk a lot, but he'd been acting odd all morning, and she wanted so badly to tell him to knock it off. However, she knew that it would probably only make him pissed at her again, and she didn't want to stay in silence for the rest of the day, wishing that Sasori would at least say something to her. Especially when she was stuck in a pricker bush and he was the only one around for miles who could get her out of this mess.

"I believe you were going to ask why we were taking this alternate route to get to the Tenchi bridge?" Sasori asked calmly causing Sakura to flinch at the unexpected noise. She started to nod to answer his question, having forgotten where her head was, and she let out a squeak of pain that transformed quickly into a groan of frustration.

Sasori observed her with one raised eyebrow as she squirmed uncomfortably next to him as he finished pulling out all the thorns from her right arm. "... The reason for traveling this way is because I'm trying to sense any foreign chakra signatures and make sure there were no traps lying about. I didn't think it would be such a difficult task for you, brat."

"Well now that I'm stuck here, you might as well tell me whatever it was you wanted to tell me before," Sakura pointed out, glad that he seemed to be acting somewhat more normal now.

"...Well for starters, you and Deidara will not be joining me when I meet up with my spy," he paused as Sakura let out a muted noise of disapproval, "... You'd only get in the way and rouse suspicion. Everything should be fine, and if something does go wrong I'll give you two a signal, and you can assist me. Otherwise this whole thing is going to be completely uneventful. I'll find out where Orochimaru's current location is, then we set off after him. Sasuke Uchiha is bound to be with him, and you can do whatever it is you want with him when we find them, alright?"

"Yeah... Are you almost done?"

Sasori sighed irritably. "I still have to get them out of your hair, unless you would rather have me cut your hair off with a kunai to get you out faster, though I don't recommend it."

"No, no just keep doing what you've been doing." She told him hurriedly in fear of having a bald head. An amused chuckle sounded from behind her which made her roll her eyes before she mumbled quietly to herself." ... Well... I guess it could be worse."

"I'm back! Did you miss me, yeah?"

* * *

He knew that his spy wouldn't take long in revealing himself once Sasori stepped onto the bridge. However, this was the first time his spy would be seeing him in his true form. Sasori still found it strange to not be inside of Hiruko, protected and at ease. He didn't like being so out in the open, and the constant gusts of wind made him question if he was going to be blown off the bridge soon.

The only things that he could see were trees, the bridge, and the river below. Still no spy. Maybe he was hiding somewhere, wondering why a random red headed teen was waiting on the bridge, which was wasting both of their precious time. That meant that he'd have to do something soon or his spy would leave, thinking he'd fallen in battle or was too busy to make it here. Sasori sighed and formed a hand sign and let his chakra flare, hoping that they would recognize his distinct chakra signature.

Another minute passed by, and Sasori began to impatiently tap his foot wondering if his spy hadn't shown up after all.

"It's been a long time, lord Sasori." The familiar voice rang in the air, signaling that his spy had finally decided to show himself. Instead of greeting him, Sasori turned to glare at the silver haired ninja with his piercing eyes that made his spy warily come to a halt a short distance away. "It's been about five years since we've last seen each other. Oh... sorry about making you wait, I wasn't sure if it was you or not. You look so young now."

"I'm thirty five years old Kabuto, and the reason why I look like a teenager is none of your concern." Sasori shifted so that he was leaning with his back against the rail, his emotionless gaze causing the medic ninja to fidget uncomfortably. Sasori smirked slightly, he missed this so much, the raw fear in his prey's eyes. "How about we talk about these pointless facts later when we're not so pressed for time. First off are you sure you weren't being followed?"

"It's just you and me." Kabuto assured, his gaze never drifting from Sasori's form.

"That's nice to hear. Now then," Sasori turned to face his spy, his voice serious, "I require information on Orochimaru and Sasuke Uchiha. I want to know where they are currently located and how long they'll be staying there. Also, if there's any other helpful information involving them don't hold back."

Kabuto was silent for a moment, most likely thinking of the best answers to his master's questions before he told him. "We've been switching our hideouts almost every week to avoid being discovered. Right now the current one is directly North from here, and is nearly impossible to miss. Orochimaru is there along with Sasuke as well."

"I see," Sasori said already thinking of possible ideas of where the hideout would be. It also looked as if luck was on their side for once. Both of their targets were together in the same hideout, and from what it sounded like, they would be staying there for a whole week. They could come up with a plan and put some training in to prepare for the harsh battle with his former Akatsuki partner.

"Now then, I'll take the item you promised me and be on my way," Kabuto informed while holding out a waiting hand, "I need to hurry back. If Orochimaru finds out that I did this then he would kill me for sure."

"I'm aware of that, bu-"

"Your conversation sounds very intriguing. I hope neither of you will mind if I join in."

_Orochimaru!_

* * *

Meanwhile, Sakura and Deidara were crouching down in the bushes nearby watching Sasori carefully. From this distance they couldn't make out the spy's identity. All they knew was that he had silver hair and was wearing a large cloak. Sakura could've sworn that he looked familiar, but she didn't dwell on that for too long. She was worrying about Sasori too much to care, waiting for him to give them the signal at any moment, and as the two continued their conversation, Sakura felt a twinge of nervousness form in her gut. She didn't like having Sasori out there all by himself even though she reminded herself repeatedly that he was an Akatsuki member and could handle himself just fine.

"Relax Pinky, you're beginning to get on my nerves, yeah."

Sakura instantly redirected her irritation towards the blond in a crouched position next to her. Actually it was too close for her liking, but this was the only spot where they could observe what was going on and maintain a safe enough distance so they wouldn't be detected.

"Shut up," she hissed barely restraining herself from elbowing him in the ribs.

"Pinky, you might want to keep your voice down, un."

"I am keeping my voice down! Besides it's not like they can hear us talking. The wind's so strong that I can't even make out what they're saying... And stop calling me Pinky."

Deidara gave her an amused look before moving to sit comfortably on the ground unlike Sakura who kept her crouched position. Her legs were beginning to cramp up badly, and it wasn't long after Deidara sat down that she copied him and stretched her legs out in front of her. Yet she still couldn't sit still, she felt like she had to do something. _What was Sasori learning out there? Was he in trouble and had forgotten the signal? Or maybe he got hit with a paralysis jutsu and was in desperate need of their help! What if- _

"How much caffeine did you have this morning? I can see you shaking, Pinky... Or maybe you're just worried about Sasori, yeah?"

"Shut up," Sakura growled, annoyed at the pestering blond.

"So you are worried about him. Now why would that be, hmm." Deidara pondered it for a moment. "Let me guess, you guys made out on the bathroom floor right after I left and now you have feelings for each other. Or you had a big fight and you're feeling guilty about it, but neither of you want to apologize. Or maybe you-"

"Shut up! I did not make out with him!" Sakura snapped just barely keeping the volume of her voice down enough so she wouldn't be heard.

Azure eyes twinkled mischievously. "Ahhh, so you two had an argument. That's interesting; I thought you two were on good terms when I left." He crawled closer to her and Sakura's emerald eyes narrowed dangerously in response. "So what were you two fighting about?"

"It's none of your business."

"Awww... But I want to know, Pinky, un."

He was invading her personal bubble. It wasn't like she had major space issues, but with Deidara she'd certainly developed something like that when the blond was around. She was about ready to snap and it wasn't going to be a pretty sight.

"Deidara, if you don't back away right now, I'll personally throw you off the cliff over there." Sakura jabbed her thumb somewhere behind her. Deidara looked to see where she was pointing and gasped. The look of pure disbelief was plain on his face along with a bit of anger which made Sakura frown. Did he seriously think she could do that? He was an Akatsuki member too, there was no doubt in her mind he could evade her capture attempts. What was he so freaked out about?

Shifting her position so that she could see for herself what the blond was staring at, she froze in fear. Even from this distance she'd recognize him anywhere.

"O-Orochimaru," Sakura choked out, still in shock. This shouldn't have happened! They weren't prepared for this! They needed more time because if they fought them now then they would most certainly be defeated. Orochimaru wasn't a legendary sannin for nothing after all.

They were so screwed...

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are appreciated and make me really happy! Thanks to everyone who reviewed, alerted, and favorited my story! **

**Sasori's Strawberry: I forgot to put this in my last chapter, but that would be cool if you wanted to do fanart for this fic. Message me if you ever get around to doing it :)**

**lol it took me literally 27 attempts to type this chapter out, and I made a joke about one of the random outcomes during the last section with Deidara and Sakura. Feel free to guess what it was that happened and I'll let you guys know what the answer is next time I update.**


	12. This is War

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A/N: It feels like forever since I last updated. Sorry for the wait, the battle scene was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, and I'm still not quite sure if I like this chapter or not, but it's important to the plot and stuff. So anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the next chapter of It Was You.

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the song This is War by 30 Seconds to Mars**

* * *

**Chapter 12: This is War**

* * *

Raw anger built up inside of Sasori as his chocolate eyes focused on his old partner from the Akatsuki. Everything about him was exactly the same. The long black hair, chalk white skin, snake like golden eyes, and the creepy serpentine tongue that flickered out of his mouth from time to time. He sickened Sasori just by standing there looking smug while observing the puppeteer like he was his prey. Too bad Sasori was not someone who was intimidated easily.

The sannin was standing directly behind Kabuto who gasped in surprise and quickly leapt back out of harm's way. The silver haired ninja landed beside Sasori while forming a chakra scalpel that coated his lower arm with icy blue chakra. It was making a strange humming noise that would have easily annoyed Sasori, but luckily the red head's attention was absorbed in more important matters at the moment.

"What are you doing here, Orochimaru?" Sasori asked calmly. His initial surprise at the sannin's sudden appearance had faded, and he was once again looking as emotionless and in control as before.

The sannin smirked. "I'm just here to oversee some unfinished business." His slitted eyes shifted over to the silver haired ninja beside him. "And I was curious as to why Kabuto decided to run off on me in the middle of the night."

"So you followed him all the way to Tenchi bridge." Sasori concluded, his eyes narrowing in anger.

"Precisely," Orochimaru agreed with a smirk. "Actually, I have been wanting to thank you for quite some time now. You're the one who sent Kabuto to me, and he's been very handy to have around."

Sasori didn't respond, instead he pushed himself away from the rail and noticed how Kabuto tensed slightly at his sudden movement. It wasn't very strange that Kabuto was wary of him since he was one of the most powerful ninja in the world, but the way he did it reminded him of a guilty animal. Not to mention the fact that his eyes shifted nervously towards him every now and again. Something was definitely up.

Thinking back on their recent conversation, Sasori thought it was strange that Kabuto hadn't been aware of the sannin following him. Especially since Kabuto was his best spy, and could've easily thrown Orochimaru off his trail. Sasori stilled as the realization of the matter dawned on him. Kabuto was going to betray him!

"Lord Sasori, please cover me while I draw Lord Orochimaru away." Kabuto requested as he lifted his chakra scalpel arm out in front of him.

After many years of being an S-ranked criminal, Sasori could sense his spy's bad intentions towards him before he'd even began to move. In less than a second, Sasori had gathered chakra to his feet and had back flipped out of reach just as Kabuto swung his arm around to meet empty air where Sasori had been standing only a moment ago.

Sasori chuckled at the bewildered look over the silver haired ninja's face. "How sad, I do believe you've underestimated me, Kabuto."

"How did you-?" Kabuto began only to stop mid-sentence. "What gave me away, Lord Sasori?"

"It's simple really." Sasori's eyes flashed angrily at Kabuto, causing him to flinch out of habit. "My best spy wouldn't allow himself to be so easily followed. You could have easily managed to escape from Orochimaru's pursuit despite the fact that he is a sannin. Plus you've been acting more pathetic than usual."

The wind stopped, and everything settled into a tension filled silence once more. Kabuto righted himself and stepped back to stand next to Orochimaru, giving a look of new found respect towards the red head who glared at the two a reasonable distance away.

Sasori didn't care so much over the fact that Kabuto had betrayed him than the fact that Orochimaru had beaten him again. In fact, he'd been expecting something like this to happen anyways. However, Orochimaru had taken his spy, and that was something that didn't settle well with the furious puppeteer. Before the day was over, he wanted both of them dead at his feet, and he would do anything to see it happen.

"Why, Kabuto?" Sasori asked, not really caring, but he was curious as to why he'd betrayed him nonetheless.

"I empathize with Lord Orochimaru's ideals." Kabuto answered truthfully, glancing at the sannin who still was watching Sasori with an interested gleam in his predator like eyes.

There was another moment of silence before Orochimaru stepped forward, making Sasori tense up. He'd seen firsthand what Orochimaru was capable of, and after being his partner for many years, he knew that out of the two of them, Orochimaru was the more powerful and experienced, as much as he hated to admit it.

"You know, I've been wondering what those two chakra signatures were over there," he pointed to the spot where Deidara and Sakura were currently hiding in the bushes. "Their chakra feels familiar, but if they're friends of yours, Sasori, you should invite them over to join in on the fun."

Cursing under his breath, Sasori formed a tiger sign behind his back and waited for his companions that appeared on both sides of him, looking anxious about the situation they were in.

"As much as I would like to fight the friend of the nine-tails and Deidara of the Akatsuki, I think that this fight should be just between us. Don't you agree, Sasori?" Orochimaru asked with a sly grin on his face as he vanished from where he was once standing. His chakra signature was heading off in the opposite direction from where they'd come from.

Without wasting any more time, Sasori set off after his old partner, leaving Sakura and Deidara behind on the bridge with Kabuto.

* * *

**Flashback**

It had taken weeks to recover after the using the forbidden jutsu on himself. Even though he couldn't feel physical pain anymore, Sasori was still exhausted mentally and his chakra had been all used up, which formed a new problem as soon as he felt the need to move and found that he couldn't in his new body. He would have to use chakra threads from now on to move his wooden limbs.

He'd practiced endlessly until he'd gotten a feel for it. Then one afternoon he knew instinctively that it was time for him to go. It was time to leave this retched village behind once and for all.

Looking at himself in the mirror in his room, he found empty, chocolate eyes staring back at him, and wooden limbs that resembled arms and legs. Then at last his eyes came to rest on his container that replaced his heart, the one human organ that he couldn't rid himself of. It frustrated him that it would be a huge weakness during a fight, but there was really nothing he could do about it.

Later that night, the fifteen year old Sasori stood on top of the Kazekage tower with Crow, Black Ant, and Salamander at the ready. The third Kazekage was already there with a grim expression on his face which told Sasori that he'd read the letter he'd sent to him earlier that day. His legendary iron sand crackled and swished back and forth the air above him a word they fought, but in the end Sasori had come out of the fight victorious. However, he'd just barely made it out of the village before his chakra had run out. Then he spent the next two days fighting off Anbu level shinobi until he'd escaped from Wind country.

It annoyed him that he'd left his favorite puppets behind when he'd fled for his life, but he wasn't puppetless for much longer when he turned the Kazekage into one of his first human puppets. It'd taken lots of time and effort, but it'd been worth it. The third quickly became his favorite puppet, and no one stood a chance against the puppeteer whenever someone had the audacity to challenge him. The end results for his opponents were always the same, and the most challenging ones were soon turned into human puppets that were added to his growing collection.

Many came to know of his name, and soon the Akatsuki heard of his growing popularity and decided to recruit the puppeteer. Sasori had been pleased at this and quickly agreed to join.

Sasori was soon paired up with Orochimaru, and for the most part they ignored each other. Yet as time passed and Sasori learned more about the sannin, he began to look up to him. Orochimaru and him shared numerous interests, and the most important one was their obsession with immortality.

For Sasori, it had been easy to get along with Orochimaru, and he enjoyed having him as his partner since the guy did almost nothing that annoyed him. Yet it all ended after Orochimaru tried to take Itachi's body, and fled from the Akatsuki, leaving Sasori without a partner and alone once again.

The loneliness inside of him flared once more, burning him from the inside out without any mercy.

* * *

Emerald orbs followed the red head as he ran off after the sannin. There was a sick feeling in Sakura's gut that was beginning to increase her anxiety as the seconds ticked by. She knew that something bad was going to happen, and she wanted nothing more than to prevent it.

"Hey Pinky," Deidara said in a quiet voice that caught the bubblegum haired girl's attention. "This weirdo is only here to hold us up. As soon as you find an opening, go find Sasori and back him up. I'll take care of the spy, yeah."

Sakura nodded and for the first time looked up and stilled at the sight of Kabuto. The creepy medic ninja was smirking at the obvious shock that flashed across her face.

"Hey there, Sakura. I haven't seen you in a long time."

"I'm kind of thankful for that too, traitor!" She snapped, her emerald eyes blazing with pure hatred. "You're going to be nothing more than a pile of dust by the time I'm done with you!"

Deidara sighed. "Ah, Pinky, you're not suppose to-" The pink haired girl shot forward, ignoring the blond who let out another sigh and prepared a handful of clay spiders. So much for the plan...

The humming noise from the chakra scalpel flew past Sakura's left ear as she darted to the right and attempted to land a nasty punch into Kabuto's side. He quickly dodged to his right, though, and out of her range, landing a few feet away, only to leap into the air to dodge a dozen clay spiders that had been thrown at him.

Sakura anticipated that Kabuto would do this, however, and was already in front of him, ready to deliver to him a painful punch to the face. Her arm snapped forward just as he shifted his position in the air, so instead she hit him with a solid blow to his stomach. He let out a painful gasp as the air was forcefully knocked out of his lungs, and retaliated by throwing a bunch of kunai with paper bombs tied onto the ends which embedded themselves into the bridge a few feet from where Sakura was currently landing.

Her eyes widened in surprise, and she willed her muscles to move, knowing full well that she would die if she stayed in her spot for another second.

There was a loud bang as the paper bombs went off, and Sakura cried out as she was blown off the bridge from the force off the explosion. Now she was free-falling to what was presumably her death, but instead, she landed on something squishy that didn't feel like water or the sharp rocks below.

Opening her eyes, she found herself sprawled out over one of Deidara's clay birds that was taking her in the direction of where Orochimaru and Sasori had went. It must've been the one Deidara had used just this morning when he'd said he was going to run a few chores for Sasori. The bird flapped its wings powerfully, taking them up and over the bridge without difficulty, giving Sakura the perfect chance to yell back to Deidara. "I owe you!"

The bird jerked forward towards the forest, and she could have sworn she heard Deidara call back. "I'll remember that, un!"

* * *

The two weaved back and forth as they advanced farther into the forest in a deadly dance of life or death. Their movements were blurred as jutsu, weapons, and taijutsu were thrown back and forth in an attempt to bring the other down.

They finally came to a halt in the middle of a small clearing; however, it was eerily dark since the lengthy tree branches obscured most of the sunlight in the area. The entire area in which they were standing was filled with chakra that radiated off the two ninja's bodies. All the small forest creatures soon realized the danger and fled, scampering away from the two dangerous ninja.

"Well, this is quite amusing." Orochimaru said, while he grinned at the panting red head in front of him. "But even you should understand that what you're doing now won't be enough to defeat me. You haven't even shown me you're infamous puppets yet, or did you forget to bring them with you?"

"Shut up!" Sasori snapped at the sannin, smirking at the look of disbelief that flashed in his golden eyes. "Allow me to introduce you to my newest addition to my collection."

Pulling out the scroll he'd gotten from Deidara only an hour ago, Sasori rolled it open with ease, and summoned the valuable puppets from inside. There was a soft thud as they appeared in front of the puppeteer, and a light grey cloud of smoke masked their identity from the curious sannin. Then placing the scroll on the ground, Sasori straightened back up and lifted his arms, the familiar sky blue chakra threads forming at the tips of his fingers before attaching onto the puppets.

"Tell me, how much do you know about the puppet master jutsu?" The crimson haired ninja questioned the motionless form of his old partner.

Orochimaru chuckled humorlessly, and replied with. "After being partnered with you for a few years, I'd say I know a little about it. Why do you ask?"

Sasori smirked. "Because I just so happen to have the exact puppets that Monzaemon Chikamatsu crafted, the creator of the puppet master jutsu. They were in the possession of my grandmother for quite some time until just recently." The red head was pleased as his words sunk in and Orochimaru's eyes widened in pure shock. The puppets finally became visible to the sannin and puppeteer, and both of their gazes fell upon the puppets that each wore pure white cloaks with high collars. They were still a bit scratched up from Sasori's previous fight with his grandmother and the brat, but they still looked ready for battle.

Getting over the initial shock, Orochimaru chuckled to himself and formed a hand sign. "Excellent! Now let's finish this once and for all!"

Sasori's chocolate eyes narrowed hatefully, but he nodded his head in agreement. "... I can't wait to kill you."

* * *

The clay bird descended until it came to a rough stop on the ground which caused Sakura to fly off its back and land ungracefully on the grass covered ground below. Cursing her luck, she pushed herself up and steadied herself before racing in the direction of Sasori and Orochimaru's chakra signatures.

It didn't take long to locate the two, but a new problem came up as she realized that she couldn't even get into the deadly fight unfolding before her. The two S-ranked shinobi were evenly matched, but Sakura's skills were nowhere near their level. She could only stare in awe as the two exchanged one destructive blow after another. Giant serpents and ten white puppets darted across the huge crater the two S-ranked ninja had made from their advanced jutsu and gigantic animal summonings.

Gazing more intently at the puppets, Sakura easily recognized them as lady Chiyo's, and frowned in confusion. _Why does Sasori have...? Oh, so that's what Deidara got this morning! He could have at least told me!_

Leaping up into a tree, Sakura wrapped one arm securely around the trunk to steady herself as she continued to watch the fight. She still had yet to see Sasori which worried her, but she knew that he was okay since his puppets kept fighting the massive amount of snakes littering the area.

Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sasori darting out of nowhere with a sharp, pointed kunai, and in less than a second he was behind Orochimaru and he'd sliced through the material covering Orochimaru's pale arm. Small, crimson droplets of blood fell to the ground.

"Why you!" Orochimaru hissed in outrage.

Sakura tensed as he reached out to ensnare Sasori with some of his summoned snakes, only to end up catching nothing as Sasori fled from where he'd been previously standing a moment ago. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to catch me," Sasori told the enraged sannin, and with that he disappeared from his spot once more.

During the few seconds he'd been visible to her though, Sakura noticed that the insane look had crept back onto Sasori's face once more. Back in the Akatsuki hideout when Sasori had revealed what he'd done to his body in order to gain immortality, his normally tired looking eyes had opened fully, and his once relaxed mood had turned more violent and deadly. It hadn't been very clear at first, but now that she remembered, Sakura felt a sliver of fear pierce her heart as she observed the heated fight from her spot in the large tree.

This didn't look like a battle between two ninja anymore to her. It almost looked like a war between two rampaging demons from the way they attacked each other mercilessly, determined to bring the other to his knees. The amount of chakra they were both sending off was astounding, and Sakura wondered how she hadn't felt it before. It was almost smothering her out of existence it was that powerful. Was Sasori really this strong?

A giant python snapped forward at a group of gathered puppets suddenly, and without any warning the puppets flew forward and delivered over hundred fatal blows to the serpent with their weapons, causing it to collapse to the ground in Sakura's direction. Letting out a gasp, Sakura lunged to the side and let out a cry of pain as she fell awkwardly to the ground. The python had crushed the tree she'd been hiding in a second latter, and the sickening sounds of flesh ripping and tree bark crunching hit the pink haired kunoichi's ears. The ground shook as the tree and snake finally hit the ground with a thunderous boom that made Sakura flinch and let out a terrified whimper.

If she hadn't reacted when she had just a few seconds ago, she would have for sure been killed. The thought caused her to shiver as she got to her feet with her emerald eyes resting upon the dead, mutilated snake and huge scattered pieces of the once huge, towering tree. A disturbingly increasing pool of blood was already forming on the ground from the overgrown reptile.

If this was what was happening down in the massive crater, Sakura could only imagine what Sasori was doing at that very moment. From what she'd seen, he'd taken out this snake that was almost as big as Manda in less than two seconds, and there were several more still down there.

Forcing her trembling body to move, Sakura approached the edge of the crater, and tried to see what was going on. She had no clue as to who was winning, and she still didn't know where Sasori was. From what she could tell, Orochimaru was beginning to look a bit peeved about something - probably Sasori's unknown whereabouts - when out of nowhere he smirked in triumph and began laughing insanely.

Frowning in confusion, Sakura scanned the area below when a flash of crimson caught her attention. The puppeteer was weaving through a crowd of seven giant pythons like the one that had nearly crushed Sakura a moment ago. He was down to five puppets now, but the way he was using them looked a bit odd from how he was using them before. It was almost like he'd gone on the defensive. _But why?_

Then her confusion turned into a mix of fear and suspicion as Orochimaru called back all his snake summons. Several large clouds of smoke appeared and just like that all the snakes had vanished, leaving the area empty except for the two ninja and puppets.

"It's over Sasori!" Orochimaru called looking quite pleased with himself. He stepped forward towards the puppeteer who had stopped a large distance away. "In another twenty seconds you'll be completely paralyzed!"

Paralyzed?

Glancing at the red head in horror, Sakura gasped at the sight of Sasori clutching his right arm that had turned bloody due to the huge gash where one of the reptiles had gotten him. Sakura's heart beat frantically as she noticed his slight wavering as he fought to remain standing. His chakra strings disconnected to his remaining puppets as his fingers shook unsteadily, and in a last ditch effort he grabbed two kunai and tossed them at Orochimaru who dodged them coolly by leaning his head to the side to avoid them.

The wild look had left Sasori's chocolate eyes, and with a cry of frustration he sank to his knees with his head bowed, hiding his growing anger and desperation that was as plain as day on his usually emotionless face. Orochimaru was only a short distance away from him when Sakura felt her shocked body lung forward. Her legs raced across the dirt covered ground as she ran faster than she ever had in her life until she skidded to a halt in front of the puppeteer, getting into a protective stance. "I.. won't... let you.. hurt him!" She screamed as she gasped for breath.

Her sudden appearance caused Orochimaru to hesitate before he let out a chilling laugh that sent another pang of fear through the bubblegum haired girl.

"... Sakura, get out of here," a quiet voice ordered from behind the trembling kunoichi.

Sakura froze at the defeated sound of Sasori's voice, but not only that. For the first time since they had been traveling together, he had actually said her name. A wave of fresh determination ran through her as those two facts registered in her head.

For some reason, it sounded like Sasori was willing to be a sacrifice in order to make sure she didn't get hurt.

Snatching a cold kunai off the ground in front of her, Sakura's grip tightened as she told the puppeteer, "I'm a kunoichi of the Leaf village. I may not be that great of a ninja, but I will never give up! My ninja way is to protect my comrades, and right now you're one of them Sasori." Sakura's blazing eyes glared hatefully at Orochimaru. "If you want to kill Sasori, you will have to go through me first!"

Sakura lifted the kunai threateningly in front of her before rushing towards the sannin. There was a brief second where Orochimaru's face twisted into a sinister sneer before he vanished from sight. Then without another moment's pause he'd grabbed onto the pink haired kunoichi's arm and swung her painfully to the ground. Sakura cried out in pain as she hit the ground at a bad angle on her left foot. Her raging thoughts came to an abrupt halt as her body registered the terrible pangs of harsh pain that originated from her newly injured ankle.

"How pitiful, even after all these years you're still the same little weak girl that I met in the forest of death." Orochimaru stated, taking pride in the flash of hurt that came across Sakura's face before she winced in pain.

The sannin walked forward and placed his foot on Sakura's injured ankle, allying pressure gradually which caused her to cry out in agony once more.

"Stop hurting her!" Sasori yelled trying to stand only to collapse on his side. The frustration and helplessness was obvious to the smirking sannin.

"And why should I?" Orochimaru questioned, looking amused at the current situation.

Glaring up at the sannin, Sasori snapped. "You only have five minutes to find your valuable medical ninja, and get him to make an antidote for you!"

"What are you talking ab-?"

"You should know better than anyone else, Orochimaru. I'm also known for my poison collection not just my puppets. There was poison on the kunai I cut you with earlier."

Alarmed, Orochimaru stepped back from Sakura who quivered from the pain of her ankle being moved once more. The pale ninja narrowed his snake like golden eyes at Sasori before glancing down at the injury on his arm, only to hiss angrily at the purple like liquid that surrounded the wound. "I'll make you pay for this!"

He stepped forward as if he was going to kill the defenseless pink haired kunoichi, but to Sasori's surprise, he hesitated. It looked like he had just come up with a more appealing idea, and he slowly stepped back from the girl with a mischievous grin on his face before he left in a hurry to find Kabuto.

Sasori glared at the retreating form before switching his gaze to the kunoichi in front of him. "Brat... are you okay?"

Sakura tried to speak, but she couldn't find the strength. The world around her was beginning to fade to black, and even though she wanted to stay awake, she knew it was going to be a hopeless struggle as Sasori's words started to become slurred to her ears. It came as a relief to her when her small frame finally relaxed against the fresh dirt as she drifted peacefully into unconsciousness.

* * *

Deidara scowled unhappily from his position in the air on top of his clay owl. The spy had done the cowardly act, and had fled a short time after Sakura had left. Disappointment rushed through him because he'd been looking forward to having a nice fight, but no, the jerk must have decided that he had more important things to do. _How irritating!_

Azure eyes were narrowed as the blond ranted on in his head for a bit until he remembered that he should be helping out Sasori and Pinky. He reached out with his senses, trying to locate their distinct chakra signatures, but was met with little results. It almost felt like they weren't even fighting anymore.

Thinking that they had probably finished their fight disappointingly early, Deidara commanded his clay creation to move in their direction, trying to locate the familiar chakra signatures of Pinky and Sasori.

* * *

Groaning in annoyance, Sasori struggled to move his frozen limbs, but found no progress even after all the effort he put into it. He was now completely paralyzed like Orochimaru had said he would be.

Almost every part of his body ached terribly. He had run completely out of chakra, and had pushed his new human body to the point of exhaustion. Even if he hadn't been hit by the snake's poisonous fangs, he would have been defeated by Orochimaru after another minute of fighting. There was just no possible way of defeating the sannin at his current level.

Sighing, Sasori's chocolate eyes flickered over to where Sakura laid on the ground just out of his reach. It had surprised him that she'd come to his aid since they were still technically enemies. Did she accidentally forget about that important fact? Why did she always have to do such pointless things?

A shadow fell upon Sasori's limp form, and if he was able to move, Sasori would have tensed and turned to face the newest arrival. However, the one that approached sensed the red head's unease and let his chakra flare slightly in response.

"Holy crap, un! What in the hell just happened here!" Deidara exclaimed as he took in the damage around him. He had just navigated through the disgusting maze of dead snakes towards the familiar forms of his down companions, but to Sasori's annoyance he crouched down by his side and started to poke him.

"Hey Sasori, are you still alive? Please don't die; I don't want to be all alone! I'll get stuck with Tobi, and he's so annoying! Come on twitch or something, yeah!"

Sasori stared at the blond with a pissed off look in his narrowed eyes and wanted so badly to kill the blond when he wouldn't cease his torturous poking. The blond knew that he loathed human contact, so why was he doing it now out of all the other times where Sasori had the option of punishing the blond for such foolish behavior? _Life just isn't fair_, he thought gloomily, rolling his eyes at the situation he was in.

"Yes, you moved your eyes! But can you do something other than rolling your eyes at me Sasori?"

"..."

"Great, I think he's gone deaf, yeah." The blond sulked as he thought out loud, missing the enraged emotion in Sasori's eyes as he turned around to see how Sakura was doing.

Deidara's worried expression made Sasori wonder if everything was alright with Sakura, but the blond quickly reassured the red head. "... Don't worry; I think she will be fine, yeah. But her ankle is really swollen up which doesn't look good. I'm going to call Ryu over, and then find a safe place for us to regroup, alright?"

"..."

The blond raised an eyebrow expectantly, waiting for a response until realization dawned upon him. "Oh that's right you can't hear me, can you?"

Sasori glared daggers at the blond in front of him, sending hundreds of foul curses mentally to the blond who remained perfectly oblivious to them as he sat down and concentrated on contacting Ryu on the other side of the Tenchi bridge. There was complete silence for about fifteen seconds until a loud bellow alerted the two Akatsuki members of the clay beast who leaped into the crater and skidded to a stop right in front of the three ninja.

Grinning, Deidara rubbed the back of his neck while he confessed. "Heh, I didn't think that was going to work, un." He quickly turned around and scooped up Sakura's unconscious form, placing her on Ryu's back before jumping back down to help Sasori up, which had to have been one of the red head's most humiliating moments of his entire life. Deidara was also well aware of his partner's embarrassment, and had on an infuriating smirk that made Sasori's blood boil.

Chuckling at the waves of anger that pulsated of Sasori's limp form, Deidara carefully set him down and sat down in between the two, trying to get as comfortable as possible before he ordered the dragon to take off. Then letting out a short, content sigh, Deidara ordered the dragon to take flight not wanting to have to deal with the dragon's jerky movements on the ground while making sure his companions didn't fall off during the trip.

Ryu let out an excited roar of approval, and snapped open its massive wings, flapping them experimentally a few times. Then the dragon leaped up into the air, and beat its wings downward with powerful strokes until it was gliding peacefully in the cool afternoon air. They're next destination was Rock country, to regroup, and come up with a new strategy.

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are appreciated, and make me really happy :)**

**So a lot of you voted for the angel story to be the next Sasori X Sakura story that I'm going to write, and only a few voted for the dragon story, so I'll get started on that as soon as possible and I'll start updating that after I'm finished with It Was You.**

**Also I just recently made a one-shot of Hidan kidnapping a school bus, so if you're interested feel free to go check it out if you want. It's called "The Bus Thief"**


	13. I Hate Everything About You

**A/N: Yea! Finally I typed a chapter that was fun and easy to make, probably because it's a filler chapter, but oh well. I've been dying to put this chapter up because this is the beginning of the SasoSaku moments a lot of you have been waiting for. I hope you all enjoy it!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the song I Hate Everything About You by Three Days Grace.**

* * *

**Chapter 13: I Hate Everything About You**

* * *

Sakura slept restlessly the entire night, and by the time she'd finally begun to come to she could feel the remains of dry tear marks. It didn't make any sense to her at first as her drowsy state of mind tried to figure out what the problem was until images of the nerve racking battle from yesterday jolted her awake. She shot up in a sitting position, unaware of her body's physical state until a rush of pain throughout her abused body made her let out a choked cry. She gripped the blanket that had been covering her, and refused to move until the pain died down to a bearable level.

Unshed tears formed in her emerald eyes as she tried to get used to her new surroundings. It was a miniature sized room, with cream colored furniture which consisted of a bed, television set, and bedside table. A kitchen area was to her right, and a possible bathroom was near the front door. All in all, it looked safe... but very empty. _Where was Sasori and Deidara?_

"What are you doing, brat?" You should be resting."

The bubblegum haired girl gasped in surprise before turning to face the crimson haired ninja who was sitting on the bed next to her with his usual bored expression on his face. His chocolate eyes, however, betrayed the multitude of emotions he was feeling though which made her frown in concern.

"W-what happened? I thought we were going to die last I checked." She asked, shifting her position towards him. Her body protested the movement though and she winced as harsh pain prickled all over. Glancing at Sasori she could tell that he'd seen her discomfort, and he sighed at her persistence to remain upright.

"First lay down, or I won't be telling you anything." His tone sounded non-caring, but she knew he was dead serious about this, so she laid back against the fluffy pillow with a relieved sigh.

Silence entered the room, and Sakura glanced up curiously, waiting for Sasori to begin, but found the crimson haired ninja watching her quite openly which made heat rush to her cheeks in embarrassment. This was so ridiculous, why did she react like this when the guy was one of the world's dangerous criminals? Or better yet, why did she risk her life to protect his? She should have ran away like any normal ninja would, but something else had compelled her to stay. She couldn't have formed some sort of bond with Sasori, could she?

Closing her eyes and letting her battered body relax into the heavenly mattress Sakura asked her question once more. "So what happened after I got knocked out?"

The mattress creaked as Sasori leaned back against the headboard of the bed before he began speaking in his low monotone voice. "Deidara found us after Orochimaru left, and ordered Ryu to fly us back to Rock country which we currently are in, and after several long hours he found a decent hotel for us. Right now I believe he is finding something for us to eat."

Sakura's stomach growled longingly at the mention of food which only added to her growing embarrassment. "... I hope he finds something edible." Her emerald orbs reopened to stare at Sasori questioningly. "I'm still confused about why Orochimaru suddenly left though. Wasn't he going to kill us?"

"I poisoned him during the battle, and told him if he didn't find his medic ninja then he was going to die." A twisted smirk formed on Sasori's lips as he spoke the last words. "Too bad, that the chances of the poison actually killing him before he found help are very slim. Now I have to hunt him down, and kill him all over again."

"I think that the next time we meet him again you'll definitely beat him." Sakura thought out loud, unintentionally stunning the crimson haired ninja beside her. She smiled as she re-accounted the battle from yesterday. "I mean, I couldn't even see you most of the time you were moving so fast, and you were taking down giant snakes in just a matter of seconds. I've never seen anything like that before in my entire life."

Sasori didn't responded, averting his gaze from hers as if he was suddenly embarrassed about her random complement. Sakura mentally scolded herself for thinking that way though, reminding herself that it was highly unlikely that Sasori would ever be embarrassed about anything.

"So um... what food was Deidara going to get?" Sakura asked nervously, desperately trying to change the awkward atmosphere between them.

Sasori shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"I hope it's good, or else I'm going to be pissed." Sakura grumbled, making a face at the thought of bad food.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that. With his appetite, I'm sure that Deidara will find the best food in the area."

"Well that's a relief." Sakura said as her stomach growled once more. "So what are we going to be doing today?"

Sasori ran a hand through his tousled crimson hair as he finally turned to meet her gaze. The same unidentifiable emotion that she'd seen once before was back again as his chocolate eyes drifted down to where her feet were beneath the covers.

"Do you have enough chakra to heal yourself?" Sasori asked, ignoring her previous question.

Sakura blinked, trying to figure out what was worrying him so much. "Yeah, I think so." She quickly checked to see how much she had exactly, and found that she had nearly all of it at the moment. She used it to do a brief scan over herself to see where most of her injuries were before she began healing.

There was a lot of minor injuries all over her, and luckily the only major one was her ankle that throbbed painfully as she used her chakra to figure out how badly it was damaged. However, if she was correct in her calculations, it would take at least a day to heal most of it, not including the other injuries her body sustained.

"This might take a while, but I have enough chakra to heal myself." She admitted, glancing over at Sasori to see if he was okay with waiting for her. She knew how much he despised waiting, so she was fully prepared for him to tell her that they were going to leave before she could begin doing so.

"... Alright then I suggest you hurry up, and get started on that." Sasori told her before sliding off the bed. "I'm going to take a shower before Deidara comes back."

"Oh... alright." Sakura said with her eyes wide in disbelief.

Was Sasori actually going to _wait _for her to get better?

* * *

At the distinct sound of a door opening, Sakura glanced up and saw Sasori walking back into the room with dripping wet hair. For a brief moment Sakura found herself mesmerized by the puppeteer and his graceful movements until he glanced over in her direction and caught her staring at him. She blushed and redirected her gaze back towards her feet, and refused to look up as he sat on the end of the bed.

The two didn't speak to each other for another hour as Sakura continued to heal her ankle and Sasori cleaned and sharpened his weapons. Sakura would occasionally glance up to see what the red head was doing, only to find him in deep in thought while his fingers worked on autopilot for him.

She found it kind of strange to be hanging out with the person who had nearly killed her about a week ago. Sakura knew she should at least feel some amount of fear towards him, but it was unsettling to her that she felt nothing like that towards the puppeteer. Before maybe, but now she couldn't help feeling relaxed and safe in his presence which was quite worrying to the kunoichi. What was going to happen when she needed to go home? She knew that it was bound to happen sooner or later. She couldn't stay with Sasori and Deidara forever.

However, doubt clouded her mind as she wondered if the two Akatsuki members would even let her go when they captured Sasuke. They didn't have to follow up on their agreement since they were both criminals. That thought caused tears to form in her emerald eyes, but she refused to let them fall, and blinked rapidly to clear them away. She hated being weak and following her emotions. That was what got her into this entire mess in the first place. If she hadn't taken pity on Sasori and brought him along with her this wouldn't have happened.

Except, she knew deep down that she would have never have abandoned him.

"... Sasori?" She whispered to gain the puppeteer's attention.

Sasori stopped working on one of his puppets to glance curiously back at her.

Sakura frowned trying to word her question just right before she spoke. "Yesterday during the incident with Orochimaru... you said my name."

"... Yes, what's your point, brat?" Sasori asked with a hint of confusion in his voice.

Sakura sighed not feeling up to an argument at the moment and instead tried to change the subject. "It doesn't matter. So are there any injuries that you want me to look at?"

"You want me to call you by your real name, don't you?"

The bubblegum haired girl wished just then that she hadn't said anything to begin with, but responded honestly anyways. "Actually I don't mind your nickname anymore, but it would be nice if you used my actual name."

Sasori looked thoughtfully at her for a moment before shrugging and getting back to work on fixing the puppet in his lap. "Alright then... I'll call you _Sakura_ from now on."

The way he said her name sent chills up Sakura's spine, and her eyes widened in shock. For some reason, none of this seemed real to her. First Sasori was waiting for her to heal, and now he was calling her by her real name. She had to be dreaming. Yet she knew for certain that she was definitely in reality when she forgot to keep healing her ankle and a sudden shot of pain ran up her leg.

Grimacing, she did her best to numb the area until only a dull ache remained as she continued healing.

Glancing at Sasori, she tried to determine if he had any bad injuries, but it was nearly impossible to tell from the way he was angled away from her. However, something didn't make sense as she watched him work diligently at a fast pace. She could have sworn that Orochimaru had said that one of his snakes had paralyzed him, and with venom that powerful to have worked so quickly on him, Sasori shouldn't even be moving yet.

"Hey Sasori, weren't you poisoned by one of Orochimaru's snakes?" She asked tilting her head to the side to try to read Sasori's expression.

To her surprise, she watched as his lips formed into a smirk and a dark chuckle came from him. Chocolate eyes flickered back to stare at her, and Sakura found herself lost in them until the puppeteer decided to tell her the truth. "I was a bit careless, Sakura." The said kunoichi felt her cheeks burn in embarrassment as he slowly said her name in an almost seductive way. Why did she ever have to bring up him saying her name? It was so much easier for her when she was called brat. Now she was going to have to deal with this stupid problem from now on!

"You see, I also had asked Deidara to bring me a few antidotes along with my puppets when he went to the Akatsuki hideout. After he realized what was wrong with me, he gave me one of the antidotes after we got to the hotel." The red head leaned back on his elbows before continuing on. "If I had known that it was a snake that had got me then I would have taken the antidote before the snake's venom took effect."

Sakura frowned. "You didn't know that it was a snake that bit you?"

A troubled look entered Sasori's chocolate eyes as he answered with a question of his own. "Didn't you see what was happening to me while I was fighting?"

"... Not really." Sakura said remembering how the puppeteer kept disappearing from sight. The only time she had seen him was when he had scratched Orochimaru with a poisoned kunai.

"The whole time I was moving at that speed, I was dodging a lot more than just snakes." Sasori told her, lifting up a part of his shirt to reveal a nasty dark bruise on his right side. "That was from an Earth style jutsu that Orochimaru got me with towards the end of the fight."

Sakura gasped as she took in the damage and painful scratch marks that decorated the area on Sasori's pale skin. It also made her feel a bit guilty realizing that he had said it had happened at the end of the fight, meaning she had been present at the time that this had happened to him. She started to move forward as the desperate urge to heal the injury overcame her own personal needs, but as she tried to move her ankle, she cried out in pain.

Sasori pulled his shirt back down and began crawling towards Sakura who was biting her bottom lip to block any pitiful noises from escaping. She hardly noticed Sasori's presence until the pain died down enough to allow her to look up. She flinched at how close Sasori was to her, but remained still as he studied her from his new position. It was almost as if he was trying to figure out the reason for her unexplainable actions. After all he was part of the world's most evil organization, and she had every right to hate him. Especially after everything he'd done to her.

So why... why did she care about someone like him?

Without even realizing it, Sasori leaned forward so that his face was merely a foot from her own. "...Why?"

The question was simple, but Sakura found herself unable to answer as her mind went blank. Sasori was so close to her now, and out of his own free will. She was terrified of what their current situation was slowly transforming into, but at the same time his mesmerizing chocolate eyes made it so any protests that she might of had died in her throat. She leaned forward slightly, not sure about what her next plan of action would lead to once she initiated it, but an unfamiliar longing need urged her on.

They were both so close to each other now and too caught up in the moment to realize that the front door to the room had slammed open, but a familiar voice was quick to pull them both out of their trance.

"Hey everyone, I'm back from the... Ahhh! What the hell are you guys doing, un?"

* * *

The rest of the day flew by surprisingly fast, and at about dinner time Sakura found herself happily devouring some of the dumplings Deidara picked up as she rested comfortably against the headboard of the bed. Sasori was on the other side of her, picking at a takeout box full of some type of noodles, and was keeping a good distance away from Sakura. She didn't really mind though since she didn't exactly trust herself at the moment. Then last was Deidara who was lying down on his stomach while watching a cartoon and eating a bowl of bakudan, appearing to be quite content.

It was almost comical how relaxed they all were. One minute they were at each other's throats then in the next they were doing something like this. Not to mention the fact that they were supposed to be trying to kill each other, not laze around and watch cartoons like a group of old friends.

Stifling a yawn, Sakura tried to keep her heavy eyelids from staying closed, but she was fighting a losing battle which she quickly conceded to, and fell asleep peacefully as she snuggled into her fluffy, cloud-like pillow.

The two Akatsuki members soon followed suit, and the odd trio spent the night sprawled out comfortably on the huge bed.

* * *

**The next day: In the evening**

"Come on, un. It would be so much fun!"

"I'm sorry to ruin your night, but I don't feel like walking at the moment, idiot."

"But it's just downstairs, so you won't have to do much walking anyways. Come on, I'm starving, and I've only been eating leftovers all day, yeah!"

"You know for an Akatsuki member you sure do complain a lot."

"Try being partnered with him for over five years."

"You two are so mean! Why can't we just go to the restaurant? I think it'll be the best thing for all of us right now after all that Orochimaru crap, un."

The pink haired kunoichi sighed before glancing over towards Sasori who was hanging out on the windowsill, his outline visible in the darkened sky. She then gave him a look that told him that she was leaving the decision up to him. She honestly couldn't decide now. It was true that her ankle still hurt, but then again it would be fun to be in a new environment for a little while. The small hotel room was beginning to bore her out of her mind.

Sasori took a while as he contemplated on whether or not they should go, and to their surprise he told them. "I see no harm in it; however, I don't want you injuring yourself over something so pointless as walking to a restaurant." His gaze was focused on Sakura's ankle as he spoke. "Are you sure you'll be able to walk on it?"

"Just give me another hour, and I should be fine." She responded, sounding confident as she estimated the time she would need.

"Alright then it's settled, we'll eat at the restaurant in an hour." Sasori declared, switching his gaze to the outside world where the full moon shined defiantly against the darkened sky.

* * *

After limping down to the restaurant near the hotel lobby, Sakura had to admit that it looked worth the effort it took her to make it do the stairs. The whole time she was very well aware of the fact that her two companions were watching her like hawks as if worried she would collapse randomly at any second.

Still ignoring their increasingly annoying stares, Sakura was relieved when they were quickly shown to their table where she fell back into a wooden chair while letting out a ragged breath. Her ankle was already throbbing uncomfortably, but she forced herself to ignore the pain as she reached for a menu to decide on what to eat. Everything looked amazing though and it was becoming increasingly hard to decide on something. Glancing over at Sasori and Deidara, she noticed that Sasori had already decided on something and was staring out into space while Deidara was experiencing the same problem as her.

At the sight of their waiter approaching them, Sakura made a speedy decision, and waited patiently as the waiter listed off the day's specials after they ordered their drinks. She didn't bother to listen though not wishing to become indecisive once more, and instead focused on the two Akatsuki members that were currently acting like polar opposites. As the man continued on Sasori looked like he could care less, and sighed multiple times, however, Deidara continued to grow more and more excited as the list went on, but it must have been fate as the guy mentioned a special on a plate of chicken wings which made Deidara's eyes light up happily. It kind of reminded her of how Naruto and Sasuke would act when team 7 used to eat at Ichiraku's...

"Oh man, I want to have that, un!" The blond said excitedly while Sasori rolled his eyes.

Their waiter scribbled down Deidara's order before turning towards Sakura and Sasori. "Alright, and what can I get for the two of you?"

Sasori didn't even look at the guy as he told him in a monotone voice. "I'll share with the brat."

"What! But the chicken wings are mine, yeah!"

Letting out an impatient sigh, Sasori pointed towards the specials board, and told the blond. "It comes with fifty chicken wings, and even though I have no doubt that you cannot eat them all, it's an all you can eat special, so I might as well share with you instead of getting my own."

"Actually that sounds pretty good right about now..." Sakura said imagining herself eating the fried chicken already. "I think I'll share too."

Deidara mumbled something about copycatting people, but Sakura was quick to silence him as she drove her elbow into his ribs, and he let a chocked yelp in response, sending her a pissed glare that the Sakura chose to ignore. She was beginning to wonder why the blond had chosen to sit next to her anyways. If she were him, she would have been on the other side of the table in a second.

They sat for the most part in silence, but after only a few minutes Sasori became increasingly more and more fidgety as he tried to calmly wait for the food to arrive. Yet as another freakishly long minute ticked by the red head stood up and informed Sakura and Deidara that he was going to go find a bathroom, and without another word he left.

It was another big mistake that night, and Deidara wasted no time in trying to annoying the pink haired kunoichi beside him. It gave Sakura an all to familiar feeling of Déjà vu.

"Sooo... what were you and Sasori really doing before I walked in?"

"That's none of your business!" Sakura snapped, fury blazing in her emerald eyes, and her hair whipped around her as she turned towards him to glare into his humor filled azure eyes.

Deidara's recent bad mood vanished, and an all too familiar cocky grin quickly found its way onto his face. "I bet you two were making out, right? Or maybe you were just about to make it to that stage when I interrupted your little scene with Sasori."

"Do you want me to kill you?" _Why out of all the times did the idiot have to guess correctly for a change?_

"Nah, because if I was dead then I wouldn't be able to bug you, Pinky."

"Shut up! Why can't you just shut up for five minutes and leave me alone!" Sakura hissed angrily.

"Because-"

Their waiter came back to their table at that moment with one eyebrow raised as he interrupted their argument. "Here's your drinks and chicken wings." He set everything down in the appropriate place before asking. "Will that be all?"

"Yeah," Sakura answered, however she mentally berated herself at the harsh way she said it and quickly tried to fix it. "Ah thanks, I think this will be fine."

The man smiled slightly and left without another word, so now it was just Sakura, Deidara, and a plate of hot, steamy chicken wings.

"I still don't understand why you two were making kissy faces at each other when-"

"Oh my God, will you just let it go!"

"Never, Pinky," Deidara said smirking. "I want to know what made Sasori so obsessed with you, and I won't stop until I figure it out, yeah."

"Shut up or I'll-"

Deidara's eyes narrowed into slits. "You'll what, Pinky?"

"...I'll.." Sakura glanced around trying to think of something evil off the top of her head to threaten the blond with when her gaze fell upon the plate of chicken wings. "... I'll throw a chicken wing at you."

The blond went from defensive to disbelieving to laughing up a storm. "A... chicken... wing?" he asked shakily in between laughs. He even wrapped his arms around his midsection because he was laughing so hard which made Sakura even angrier for being mocked so openly. Doing what any normal person would do in this situation, she reached over, grabbed a hot chicken wing and chucked it at Deidara.

The blond never saw it coming, and it hit him perfectly in the face leaving a grease mark on his forehead before falling into his lap. His laughter stopped soon after that as he just registered the fact that she had actually gone through with her ridiculous threat. Sakura gulped feeling a bit nervous as Deidara became silent and slowly looked up to glare daggers at the pink haired kunoichi. Debating on whether or not she should just leave before things got worse Deidara decided for her by retaliating and throwing a chicken wing at Sakura that hit her straight in the jaw.

Wiping the grease off her face, Sakura began to ask. "Did you just-?"

Smack! Another chicken wing hit her, but this time it landed on top of her head somehow.

Slamming her fists on the table, Sakura growled out. "That does it!" She grabbed a handful of chicken wings and the two of them soon started a chicken wing war. Each were on different sides of the table, using the chairs as shields.

Most people in the restaurant ignored them since they were placed in the far corner of the restaurant, and even the employees didn't seem to care. Actually some looked amused by theirs childish behavior. And after another few seconds of their childish antics, Sakura began to laugh hysterically. She didn't remember ever acting this crazy in public before, but she was finding it to be quite fun. However, what the two failed to notice was the crimson haired ninja who was currently walking back to their table looking very bored, but that expression was quickly replaced with a dumbfounded look that looked very out of character on him as he surveyed their messy table.

The 'chicken war' was still going on, so when Sakura dodge to the right to avoid a particularly greasy piece it continued on its flight path until it smacked Sasori right in between his eyes. Sakura didn't know of the danger yet and kept on going until she finally caught the look of horror on Deidara's grease stained face. She turned around with a puzzled look that soon turned to understanding as she took in the sight of Sasori with a chicken wing stuck on his face.

Reaching up slowly to remove the disgusting thing off of him, Sasori then reopened his chocolate eyes that now had visible blood red flecks within them due to the bright fluorescent lights. It gave him an angry, demonic look that only he could manage to pull off, and with extreme caution, Sakura and Deidara backed away from the infuriated red head that took a step towards their retreating forms.

They were so dead...

"You two are going to pay. First you ruined my dinner, and now this." Sasori said in a deadly, calm voice that absolutely terrified the two quivering ninja even more.

"S-sorry... look we didn't mean to-"

"Shut up Deidara!" Sasori snapped.

The rest of the people in the restaurant began to eye their table warily as the red head appeared to get more and more enraged as the seconds slowly ticked by. Some of the smarter customers left money on their table and quickly fled from the scene before the killing began.

"Prepare yourselves," Sasori said lifting up his hands as a faint blue began to glow on the ends of his fingertips. Then in the blink of an eye, Sasori was attaching chakra strings to the scattered pieces of chicken and began sending them flying at the two ninja who desperately tried to escape from the chicken torture.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

* * *

"I'm going to miss this place," Sakura confessed looking over her shoulder to see the hotel. That had definitely been one of the best nights of her entire life. Turning back to look at Deidara and Sasori on either side of her she asked. "So, where are we going now?"

"I think we should go back towards Tenchi bridge, and find Orochimaru's hideout before doing anything else." Sasori said while looking towards the rising sun in the distance.

Sakura nodded, looking determined as the exited the small town they'd been staying in. It was only two hours away from the Tenchi bridge, so it wouldn't be too hard to start where they had left off. Her remaining chakra flared slightly as the image of amused snake-like eyes entered her thoughts. She couldn't wait to help kill that creeper.

The crimson haired ninja beside her, glanced curiously in Sakura's direction at the slight change in her chakra, but the pink haired kunoichi ignored the stare, feeling a bit nervous about what would happen if she were to meet those smoldering eyes. It wasn't fair that he was having this affect on her. Maybe her emotions were running away with her again? Except that thought only made her even more disgusted with herself.

"Hm?"

Sasori's chocolate eyes flickered over to Deidara, allowing Sakura to relax once more. "What is it Deidara?"

The blond frowned, and Sakura could sense his chakra spiking slightly as if he were trying to lock in on someone else's chakra signature. A serious mood set over him as he announced. "It looks like we've been found by the group of weirdoes again, yeah."

It took a few seconds before she remembered who the weirdoes were again, but when she did Sakura's hands fisted at her sides as she recalled what happened last time she had seen them. "So the rogues are following us again?" Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sasori tense slightly at the mention of the ones who'd just recently broken his fingers. His expression darkened dangerously, and he quickly sped up his pace to get out of the town.

"I've had enough of this nonsense; once we're far enough away from the town we're going to settle this once and for all." Sasori said with a dark, murderous tone while his previously injured hand clenched tightly into a fist. "I'm done waiting..."

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are appreciated :) I can't believe I'm almost at 200! Thank you so much to all the people who reviewed, favorited, or put my story on their alerts, it means a lot to me!**

**Lothiriel17: There's your epic chicken wing fight :P**


	14. Pareidolia

**A/N: This took way too long to update and I'm extremely sorry. All I can say is life got in the way along with writers block, but I've never went a day without thinking of my readers and this story. I promised before that I would finish this story and I will... eventually. I had the worst writer's block on this chapter, but now I think I've got my inspiration back. I hope you all enjoy :) And once again I'm terribly sorry about the wait.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the song Pareidolia by Elena Siegman.**

* * *

**Chapter 14: Pareidolia**

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The dry air was absolutely suffocating to run through, and soon all three ninjas were gasping for breath as they tried to gain some distance between them and the hastily approaching rogues. They were like a pack of famished hyenas hunting down their prey, relentless and mocking their attempts to flee.

A sudden curse from Sasori broke Sakura's intense concentration on healing her ankle as she ran, and the minty green chakra vanished in an instant. Up ahead, Deidara looked back at the puppeteer in confusion until he too noticed what Sasori had sensed, and both quickened their pace. Without hesitating, Sakura followed their lead trying to ignore the sharp pain emanating from her sore ankle.

Nearly thirty seconds passed before she sensed it too, and the icy claws of fear traveled down Sakura's spine as she also began to detect the many chakra signatures trailing behind her. It was almost five times the amount of what they thought they were going to fight.

It had just begun to dawn on her how little chakra both she and Sasori had; however, between the two of them, Sasori had got the worst of it. Sakura's ankle was almost back to normal now so she was only suffering from chakra depletion, but Sasori had used up nearly all of his chakra during his fight with Orochimaru and still had fresh wounds that had yet to be healed by her.

Their original plan of facing the rogues head on would be suicidal if they continued through with it. There had to be at least twenty five Jounin level ninja coming after them from what she could sense so far. Why did Deidara have to piss off someone with enough people for them to be a small army? They were going to be killed at the rate this was going!

Shifting her gaze from the ground disappearing beneath her feet, Sakura examined the grim looks of the two Akatsuki members in front of her. The weight of this situation was weighing down on all of their thoughts, it seemed. If they stayed and fought, Sasori and Sakura would be ripped apart like defenseless genin, and Deidara would have to choose between fight or flight, most likely the later of the two. Also Ryu wasn't an option for escaping either because it would be all too easy to track a giant clay dragon in the sky or the dinosaur like footprints in the ground.

Unable to take the heavy silence any longer Sakura asked with concern laced throughout her voice. "What are we going to do?"

"Just stay focused on running a little longer," Sasori ordered, his calculating eyes fixated on the horizon. "There's a forest up ahead that will help us prepare for an ambush on those pests. I don't want to waste anymore of my time on them when I can be killing someone else."

"You do realize that an ambush isn't going to win us the fight, right? We can only take out so many shinobi before they regain their senses and start fighting back and-"

"Relax Pinky, we do happen to be Akatsuki members for a reason, remember, yeah?"

The kunoichi's worried frown deepened at Deidara's half joking words. Images of the battle with Sasori flashed across her mind for a brief moment before she responded back flatly with. "I know that... but even you two are human and have your limitations. Don't you realize that we're going to-"

"Die?"

Emerald eyes widened in surprise as Sasori turned back to give her an almost bored look. "It's pointless to fear something such as death, and besides, I technically should have died a week ago anyways." Sakura could sense that Sasori wanted to say more, but had refrained himself from doing so. The crimson haired ninja turned away from Sakura looking slightly troubled about something for a heartbeat before his emotionless mask shifted back into place.

Sakura was about to open her mouth to ask what was wrong when Deidara came to an abrupt halt in front of them on top of a steep rocky hill. "Found it, yeah."

When they caught up to him, emerald eyes widened in shock at the sea of trees before them. The forest was enormous, and was a sharp contrast against the dry, desert like terrain they'd been journeying across for the past few days. Foliage was everywhere, and the inside looked dark and compact, reminding Sakura of the forest of death at her first chunin exam. It was normally the sort of place you would want to avoid at all costs, but to them it meant safety and was their only hope if they wanted to survive.

Taking in a nervous breath, Sakura rushed forward with Sasori and Deidara right behind her. She only hoped that they would all get out of this nightmarish place alive and intact.

* * *

The pink haired kunoichi found that it was quite easy to mask your chakra when you had barely anything left to begin with. She guessed that even a big disadvantage like that had to have some sort of advantage to go along with it. Now all she had to do was wait patiently inside a tree in a tight compact space with Sasori who was obviously displeased at this turn of events.

While Deidara had decided to hide up higher where it would be easier to mask his chakra, Sasori thought it would be better if he and Sakura stayed a reasonable distance from the ground just in case all hell broke loose and they would need to scurry away before they got massacred. Plus Sasori and Deidara were much more experienced at detecting chakra, so one of them had to stay with her to keep her informed about where the rogues were. Unfortunately, the place they were hiding in was a hollowed out part of a tree about seventeen feet off the ground, and it was so small inside that their legs had to be tangled together in order to fit. Neither of them dared to move or say a thing, but it was easy to tell that the tension was building between them by each passing second.

Yet to Sakura's further embarrassment, her body started to break down under the stress by trembling in response. At first it wasn't noticeable, but after a while her trembling fits happened more and more frequently and had begun to attract Sasori's unwanted attention. Luckily he didn't say anything about it; however, Ryu couldn't ignore Sakura's signs of distress. He quickly darted out from her ninja weapon bag and curled up against her neck while his eagle like talons grasped at the material of her shirt on her shoulder. A soft purr sounded by her ear, but the completely zoned out kunoichi hadn't expected it and flinched in surprise.

Ryu let out a concerned cooing noise and lapped at the exposed skin on the bubblegum haired girl's neck trying to sooth her, and it worked for a little while until Sasori's quiet whisper filled the space between them.

"Sakura, as much as I find this pointless to ask, what's wrong?"

Blinking in shock, Sakura stammered out. "N-nothing's wrong, w-why would you think s-something's wrong."

Chocolate eyes narrowed at the lie that had just spilled out between her lips, and Sasori nearly hissed the next words that came out of his mouth. "Because you have been holding my hand in a near death grip for the past few minutes!"

_I've been holding his-? _Sakura's train of thought crashed as she froze in terror at the sight of her hand squeezing Sasori's pale one, and judging by the loss of circulation in it, he must have been telling the truth about her holding it like that for the past few minutes. Retrieving her evil hand and placing it in her lap, she avoided Sasori's questioning gaze like the plague. A whole new wave of embarrassment rushed through her as she meekly apologized to him. "Sorry, I didn't realize-"

"I don't care about the hand," Sasori stated, although she could see right through his obvious lie as he placed his abused hand in his lap, far away from her. "I just want to know what's upsetting you because if you keep this up you'll be nothing but a burden in this upcoming fight."

"…A burden?" Sakura said out loud seemingly shocked at his words. Immediately the young kunoichi slouched and her emerald orbs dulled at the word that had been her inspiration to become stronger. If only she hadn't been a burden back then and relied too much on Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi. If only she'd figured out sooner that she had to grow up and learn how to fight her own battles, not only to protect herself, but to protect the ones closest to her. She loathed with a passion the very thought of herself being useless.

Glancing up timidly at Sasori, Sakura noticed that the puppeteer was giving her an odd look, but from this close up she could once again see the garnet flecks swirling around in Sasori's tired looking eyes. She could also make out the slightest showings of a frown starting to form. Then it hit her like a random brick sailing through the air and smacking her straight in forehead. He was worried about her! Her stampeding thoughts rushed onwards, unable to believe that the Akatsuki member in front of her could care at all for a failure like her.

All this time she had been working her butt off to impress those around her, to prove to them that she was formidable shinobi. Every single day in the village she always had to keep up a strong facade that had slowly worked its way onto her like a mask, but she still didn't truly believe in her powers and abilities until she began traveling with Sasori and Deidara. Not once up until now did either one of them call her weak... annoying yes, but definitely not weak, which she found to be strange considering they were both one of the strongest ninjas in the world. Sure Naruto and Kakashi never directly told her that she was a pathetic excuse for a ninja that should just sit on the sidelines where she'd be safe, but she ended up doing just that ninety-five percent of the time during missions...

"Sasori... I-"Sakura began only to end up biting her tongue as Sasori's hand smacked down onto her mouth, effectively silencing her. Doe-eyed and frightened at his actions, Sakura quickly followed his line of sight and stilled at the sight of a lone ninja in the clearing below them. However it wasn't the sight of him that made Sakura's insides tremble in fear. It was the dark crimson stains marring his gray robe and the dark, menacing chakra that fluctuated off from him in waves.

The mysterious ninja didn't move in the slightest, call out to them, or do anything for that matter except continue to let of an alarming amount of chakra, showing off his power. She was so intent on the figure below, Sakura cringed reflexively when a bird screeched nearby and a flutter of wings traveled over their heads. She heard Sasori let out a soft sigh at her alarmed and on edge state, and gave her a hard look before focusing on the beginning phase of their ambush.

Sasori removed his hand from off of Sakura's mouth, and in seconds the smallest threads of sky blue chakra strings started forming at the tips of his fingers. They were nearly invisible even in the darkened part of the tree they were hiding out in, and with careful precision, Sasori guided them to their targets that were spread across the clearing. Now all they had to do was wait for Deidara's signal.

They were like coiled up springs waiting anxiously to be released into action at any moment. Sakura already had a sharpened kunai at the ready; her grip tightening at every passing second that flickered by. It was almost too nerve racking, and Sakura briefly wondered how predators in the wild could do this for a living. They must have to live a life filled with adrenaline racing through their veins at each moment, wondering constantly which hunt would be their last.

Then the rogue moved, pulling his hood down and finally exposing his middle-aged face. The kunoichi could have sworn she felt Sasori tense beside her after he did this, and she turned towards him worriedly wondering what the problem could be this time when she clearly saw a trace of shock on Sasori's face. Judging by the way his jaw was clenched and the death glare he was sending toward the rogue, she could tell that he was going to be trouble for them.

The man had scars scattered all across his face, making him look more like a murderer straight out of a horror movie. His posture was relaxed, but he was obviously still alert and waiting for any indicator of where they were hiding. His muscles rippled beneath his tan skin as he slowly scanned his surroundings.

This was definitely not the average rogue who they can smack down with a single jutsu and never see again. Sakura concentrated on trying to figure out who this bizarre person could be, but the only thing she could identify him with was a bounty hunter; however, if that was the case, then they were as good as dead.

"I know you're out there," The man proclaimed to the vacant clearing, shark eyes shifting back and forth in an effort to locate them.

A branch snapped behind him, and before Sakura knew it he'd vanished before her only to appear on the other side of the clearing. There was a strangled cry for about a half a second before the hunter like ninja flung a corpse of a rogue ninja into the clearing. Apathetic eyes examined the body before he told it, "You should know better than to interrupt me when I'm on the hunt." With that he scoffed, kicked some dirt at the broken body at his feet, and left in an instant with not so much of a trace of him left behind.

"Sakura?" The kunoichi turned slowly towards Sasori, her body still frozen in fear. "We're going to have to split up now. There's no way we can fight and have any hope of survival."

Panic swept through her and she had to fight off the temptation to scream in protest. So instead she choked out a hoarse, "No... Please... I don't... I can't..." Sakura had no chakra to defend herself with; she couldn't use it to run, and she couldn't use it to numb the leftover pain in her previously injured ankle. There was no way she would live if she encountered that monster in the forest by herself!

"Listen we're wasting precious time. We need to run now before he comes back. Deidara and I will take separate paths nearest to where the bounty hunter went while you take the one in the opposite direction. We can meet up somewhere on the other side and come up with another plan." Sasori explained hurriedly trying to calm and yet urge Sakura to just run for it.

"So that was a bounty hunter?" Sakura said more to herself than as a question.

"Yes and he's extremely dangerous. I don't know who Deidara managed to piss off this time, but the guy obviously has some great connections to be able to hire him." Chocolate eyes resumed their focus on the kunoichi who was trembling once again, and with a wary sigh, Sasori reached out and gently picked up her closest hand and leaned in to tower over her, smirking as her emerald orbs widened in disbelief. "Tell me Sakura, how does a bird learn to fly?"

"..." Not even daring to move, Sakura's breath hitched as the puppeteer came even closer until their faces were nearly five inches apart. His free hand that she'd nearly squeezed to death earlier was placed behind her next to the side of her head, trapping her and efficiently holding her still.

His smirk widened and a playful gleam shined brightly in his eyes as he came closer still until his mouth was right next to her ear. "They learn that they need to spread their own wings and fend for themselves for a change. So get a move on in that direction," Sasori pointed to the right of Sakura, "It would be a shame for you to have come so far for your teammate only to fail when you were so close."

Too stunned to move or function properly as Sasori disentangled himself from her and exited their hiding place, the crimson haired ninja glanced back one last time and whispered to her one last thing. "And Sakura, remember, I absolutely disdain the idea of having to wait, so make sure you run."

There was a slight breeze as he took off into the dark, ominous forest, and then Sakura was completely and utterly alone.

* * *

Chills spread across her arms and legs as Sakura sprinted as fast as she could through the endless amounts of foliage blocking her escape path. She was gasping for breath as her arms flailed to shove branches out of the way to protect her face from any harm. It was difficult to see. Sometimes it was downright impossible, and she would have to force her shaking body to slow down and feel her way forward when it became difficult to see anything at all.

Ever since Sasori left, she had been feeling a set of eyes on her, but there was no way she'd be able to tell for sure. She was completely vulnerable in this situation because to sense another ninja would mean using her own chakra which she was saving just in case she ran into trouble.

Moving as stealthily as she could, Sakura paused on top of what she assumed to be a giant log, and waited to catch her breath for a moment. She also wanted to be certain that she wasn't actually being followed, that way she could calm her nerves down which were currently still in panic mode. It was a good thing she had Ryu with her or else she might have cried. She was so far away from home, friends, and family, and the thought of her failing and being killed by a psychopath who was currently in the forest with them now had her terrified that she might never see any of them again.

Using only her instincts, Sakura listened hard while breathing deeply and without moving an inch, only there were no signs of life around her at all besides the gnarly trees that efficiently blocked out all sunlight.

Of course. Sunlight!

Why didn't she think of that sooner? Using the kunai still in her hand, she aimed diagonally upwards and in front of her towards the tree tops. Satisfied at the tiny hole she'd created, she caused a tiny beam of sunlight to shine down and highlight a dark, cloaked figure standing only ten feet away.

Letting out a choked cry of alarm, Sakura quickly wheeled around and fled into the darker part of the forest. _Please, this can't be happening to me! Oh my god! Oh my god! Gonna die... I'm going to die! _She thought hysterically, hearing the person this time following her as they let themselves be heard. When a slight dip in the ground caught her by surprise, she stumbled and fell, but the ground became steeper and steeper. Clawing desperately at the ground, grabbing onto only dead leaves and debris, Sakura slid and fell about eight feet, landing hard on her already wounded ankle, once again injuring it.

Tears of pain, fear, and despair streamed down her face as she began to crawl on all fours as a last ditch effort, but when her fingers brushed against a rubbery material she halted in her tracks. The unknown person was standing right in front of her. Speechless and unable to do anything, Sakura stayed where she was, knowing that this was the end for her when a familiar irritating laugh broke the silence.

"Well now, what happened to you Sakura? You looked just fine the other day when we met up with each other."

Sakura's face contorted with rage as she growled out his name. "Kabuto."

Grinning madly at her furious features, Kabuto shook his head in mock disbelief before telling her, "You know, I thought you would have been more of a challenge considering you were trained by Tsunade. What a worthless waste of time."

"What do you mean?" Sakura demanded getting angrier by the second. "And why are you even here in the first place? If you were smart you would leave immediately because there's a hunter ninja around here-"

"What, do you think I'm a fool? Of course I know that, I'm the one who hired him. In fact I'm the one who's been ordering around all the ninjas that have been trying to assassinate you guys for the past week."

Sakura's body turned numb as she began to connect the dots. Of course it wasn't Deidara these guys were after this whole time. It was Sasori. Orochimaru and Sasori hated each other and would do anything in order to be rid of the other. However, Orochimaru probably wasn't sure though if Sasori would be in his true form or be hiding inside Hiruko, so he'd most likely told Kabuto to order the rogues to find the blond bomber instead.

If the orders were to kill any that were with him as well then Sasori would be eliminated and Orochimaru would have one less thing to worry about. Also, by setting everyone's focus on Deidara, no one would suspect that it was really just Kabuto and Orochimaru behind the scenes, but there was still one problem. Why did Kabuto seek Sakura out specifically when it was Sasori he was really after?

"Why?" She asked in a faint whisper as she stopped attempting to stand up. What good would it do her anyways when she couldn't put any weight on her ankle? Her fate rested quite literally in Kabuto's hands now, as much as she hated to admit it to herself.

"What? Are you confused about why I've been trying to kill you guys this last week?"

"No," She took a deep shuttering breath to calm her nerves before meeting the eyes of the monster in human form in front of her. "Why do you need me? This whole time you've been trying to capture me while attempting to eliminate two members of the Akatsuki. I just don't understand why I'm of any value to you."

A deep chuckle startled her, and she couldn't help but flinch as he crouched down to her level and studied her up close. He studied the way her arms trembled in exhaustion from swinging wildly at tree branches for the past half an hour, how her breaths came in short gasps of air, the way she was fixated on his every move, and how her eyes glittered like emerald flames in the barely lit forest. Her pure determination to live was astonishing in itself, but it was enough for Kabuto to realize that she was the one he'd been searching for, not Tsunade.

That same determination could be turned against her, and he had just the person who could do it.

Reaching into a spare pocket within his cloak, Kabuto pulled out a needle and came forward, ready to sedate the kunoichi who began stumbling away from him in a last ditch effort. "Foolish girl, you think you can escape me in the condition that you're in?"

Sakura cringed before she hit the ground for the fifth time, wincing and accidently letting out an inaudible pained whimper as she twisted her foot on a fallen branch. With her senses on high alert she could hear Kabuto's soft footsteps close behind her, nearing the spot where she'd fallen.

"Don't! Just leave me alone!" Sakura pleaded, too exhausted to move any further. She'd quite literally used up all the energy she had and was now running on empty. There was no way she could escape by herself now, and even if Kabuto did in fact leave her alone, which was very unlikely, she probably wouldn't be alive by tomorrow morning.

A cold hand clamped down on her upper arm, and yanked it into a certain position that had Sakura protesting in an instant. She tried to kick, punch, and scratch any part of Kabuto that she could reach at this awkward angle, feebly attempting to free her bruised arm from the monster who seemed to be trying to pull it off of her body. There was a sharp pained sensation which her dulling mind identified as a shot, but the effects of the drug assisted her tired body by forcing Sakura to sleep and leaving her at the complete mercy of the enemy.

* * *

Upon leaving the pitch dark forest, Sasori found himself having to squint in pain against the harsh sunlight. The wispy clouds overhead had no effect at all in blocking out the sun, and the puppeteer found himself mentally cursing as he jumped down from the tree he was in and walked a short distance away so that he could sit down in the tall grass surrounding the area. He disliked the way it tickled up and down his exposed skin which was mainly his arms, but he endured it silently while he waited for the familiar chakra signatures of the others. If they didn't come soon he was going to have to leave without them and find some form of shelter to hide in tonight.

Letting out a sigh of frustration as he wondered how long it was going to take for the others to get here, he leaned back on his arms with his legs crossed in front of him while he watched the sunset. A bloody red was smeared across the afternoon sky overhead complimenting the orange that filled up the rest of the sky, and behind him the impossibly bright sun flared casting shadows all around the crimson haired ninja. It would only be another hour before it became nightfall if Sasori's calculations were correct.

Ripping a strand of a tall piece of grass out of the ground, Sasori fiddled around with it out of boredom, all the while his eyes scanning the wall of trees before him for any signs of movement.

Another thirty minutes later, Sasori was nearly at a breaking point after waiting for so long. He was about to get ready to leave when a loud bang sounded nearby, making him once again interested and alert. It was either going to be Sakura, Deidara, the hunter ninja, or the twenty or so rogues, but if there was fighting going on, then Sakura or Deidara were sure to be involved.

As patiently as he could, Sasori waited a little while longer until a familiar blond darted out of the forest, heading in his direction about two hundred yards away. Some of the worry that had been building up in Sasori went away at the sight of him unharmed, but Sakura was still out there and it would only get harder for her once the sun disappeared over the horizon in the next half an hour.

Standing up and stretching a bit after crouching for so long, every muscle ached slightly in relief as they were put back into a more comfortable position. Now all Sasori had to do was figure out a plan with Deidara to get Sakura out of the forest, and then they could start searching for Orochimaru's hideout once again.

Refocusing his gaze on Deidara, his chocolate eyes narrowed suspiciously as the blond continued towards him at full speed, yelling something out to him that he couldn't quite make out. He sounded winded like he'd been running the whole time they'd been separated, and as he came closer, Sasori could clearly see the panic on his face. "Ru... so... un... they... omin!"

Rolling his eyes, Sasori was about ready to yell out that he couldn't understand him when the ground began to rumble beneath his feet. His mouth actually fell open in shock as nearly thirty shinobi burst out of forest armed with weapons in hand, and among them in the front was the hunter ninja leading the group.

"Run! Don't just stand there! Run Sasori, yeah!" Deidara shouted as he ran past his stunned partner who was thinking a multitude of curses at that moment.

Whirling around to start fleeing the sight, Sasori yelled furiously at his partner. "You fool! I told you to make sure you weren't being followed! Now look what you've done!"

Cerulean eyes looked over innocently at the puppeteer who was now shaking in rage. "It wasn't my fault, un! I tried killing that hunter ninja, but he dodged my attack like it was nothing and started diffusing my bombs with his earth style moves! I tried to get away, and that's when he called for reinforcements, yeah!"

"Is it even possible for you to not make a complete mess of something?" Sasori seethed realizing that they were going to have a major fight on their hands once the group behind them caught up, which wouldn't take long, sadly.

"I thought that even you would realize at this point, Sasori, that I don't exactly follow a set plan. I just kind of go with the flow, yeah."

"I'm about two seconds away from strangling you."

Deidara smirked at the threat, but before the puppeteer could do anything harmful to him, he quickly intervened by saying. "Well at least Pinky is going to be okay now. She'll probably rent a room at an inn tonight while we're stuck out here fighting our asses off, un. Why does Pinky always get all the luck?"

* * *

The musky smell of her new environment woke Sakura up from her heavy drug induced sleep, but it still took a few minutes before she could even begin to move properly. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, taking note that she was on a small, single bed which seemed to be the only furniture in the tiny room besides the nightstand that had a lit candle on top. From what she could sense, there were barrier jutsu's placed on the walls, floor, ceiling, and the door, which would effectively keep her trapped inside until someone came to her.

Her instincts told her she was underground in some sort of base, but where specifically, she had no idea. Her foggy mind still needed time to clear itself as she tiredly tried to assess her injuries. However, she was mildly surprised when she didn't feel even an ounce of pain or something out of place; even her ankle felt like normal as she moved it around to test it out. Still, she didn't feel any negative reaction from doing so, but dwelling over it wasn't going to help her right now. So instead she stood up on unsteady legs, letting the cold chill of the floor ghost across her bare feet as she padded over to where her traveling boots were lying on the ground at the base of her bed, and quickly slid them on just as the door behind her opened.

Turning around sharply in alarm, the kunoichi almost fell, if it wasn't for the bed that she used to quickly right herself and stand back up. Sakura only glanced at the silver haired ninja before her temper flared as she slowly began to recall what had just happened recently. "Why did you bring me here, Kabuto! I thought you would at least have the guts to kill me!" She snapped as her emerald eyes burned with rage.

"My, my, you're a feisty one aren't you?" Kabuto said with a hint of mockery in his voice. "The reason why I brought you here was to heal someone of great importance to me and to do something extra afterwards. After you do that, I'll let you go."

"And you think I'm naive enough to trust your word?" Sakura growled, her fists clenching and unclenching as she imagined herself pummeling the backstabber before her into the stone floor beneath him.

"Here's the deal, if you heal Lord Orochimaru's arms, I'll take you to see Sasuke as a reward."

* * *

**A/N: I have a poll on my profile where you guys can vote on what day you'd like me to update on. I'm going to try to update as quick as I can as long as my school work or life in general doesn't get in the way now that I don't have that awful writer's block anymore.**

**Also thank you so much for the people who've reviewed, favorited, etc., in my absence. It made me so happy and encouraged me to get back to writing this story again.**


	15. AN No New Chapter!

First off, I would like to start by saying to each and every one of you that I'm so sorry. I tried to finish this story, but all the future rough drafts and chapters that I had written had gotten deleted a few months ago. I'm extremely sorry for the inconvenience. However, I will not be finishing this story any longer, I'm going to give it to someone to finish for me while I work on other projects.

**Krystal Kitsune Uchiha** is going to be the one to finish this story for me. The links below are where you will be able to read the rest of It Was You. Thank you so much for sticking with me for this long, and once again I'm sorry that I'm not going to finish It Was You anymore.

* * *

www . Writing. com authors /dracomione grr here

and

www. Writing main/ portfolio /view /lisanna 90

Just make sure to take out all the ( - and spaces ) in the website addresses.


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